Mama bears in the belly of the beast: Moms for Liberty disinformation campaigns in California

Across the United States, Moms for Liberty (M4L) has used coordinated strategies to spread fear and disinformation to ban books and elect conservative board members aligned with their agenda. However, to date, few empirical studies have systematically examined their tactics, messages and consequences. Additionally, most media and scholarly attention has focused on the activities of M4L in traditionally conservative states. Less studied are the ways that they are building support through disinformation in progressive states such as California. In this article, we first examine the political, economic and social characteristics of the 16 counties with M4L chapters, compared to those without. We then study the group's tactics of disinformation through textual analysis of 502 documents pulled from nine California chapter websites, six social media accounts and 29 podcast episodes. We find that counties with M4L chapters more often experienced an increase in Republican voters, were more often urban, had higher rates of Bachelor degree attainment, and had lower percentages of native US citizens. Consistent with previous findings, we found that California chapters used a range of strategic activities to promote their agendas, including collaborating with other far-right organisations, taking legal action, disseminating information, and voter engagement through local electoral races. Through disinformation campaigns they combined parents' larger critiques of schools and society with White-implied Christian nationalism, anti-trans and anti-communist narratives to further far-right policy agendas. Unveiling these strategies and narrative frames is a first step in a broader research agenda that can counter disinformation strategies and promote equitable education policies.