A recent letter from the National School Board Association asking for help from the White House to combat what it calls a form of "domestic terrorism" has sparked controversy.
The New York Times reports that in response to the Sept. 29 letter, the Justice Department is sending law enforcement officials to locations where school board members have been threatened over "mask mandates and teaching about racism, and possibly pursue prosecutions."
Republican U.S. Senate candidate J.D. Vance told the Mount Vernon News he disagrees with the Justice Department's response, saying the federal government should promote parents and other citizens who get engaged at the local level, not prosecute them.
Vance, a venture capitalist and the author of the memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” which was turned into a Netflix movie, will make a campaign stop in Mount Vernon at noon on Thursday, Oct. 21, at the Woodward Opera House's Recital Hall. The Knox County Young Republicans are hosting the free event.
“What the attorney general is doing is basically weaponizing the people's government against them to silence them,” Vance said in an interview. The argument to justify these actions is that school board meetings occasionally get unruly, he said. But, Vance said, that’s often how democratic governance works.
The top issue facing Ohio and much of the country is the southern border of the United States, according to Vance.
“What that means is that a lot of drugs and a lot of crime, a lot of gang activity is flowing in our communities. It's obviously worse in Texas than it is here, but it's definitely making its way north,” he said.
Vance said local prosecutors and police officers say their communities have been transformed by drug cartel activity that made its way this far north and predicted it’s going to get worse.
“I think we should finish the border wall, we should double the number of border patrol agents we have enforcing that border, and then we should actually empower them to do their job,” he said.
A longer-term problem has been 30 to 40 years of loss of manufacturing and industrial capacity to China, he said. That’s horrible for middle class workers and makes the economy less self-sufficient.
“I think you're seeing the consequences of it with your ships, basically trapped in ports, unable to offload their goods. A lot of Americans aren't able to get the things that they need,” he said.
It’s unacceptable for the world's most powerful economy to be so dependent, according to Vance. He suggests that to make it possible for American businesses to manufacture products in America, companies manufacturing outside of the country should pay a penalty.
Vance said partisanship is fueling accusations that large conservative organizations pay lower taxes than middle-class taxpayers. In addition, he said, large left-leaning groups like the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Harvard Endowment aren't so criticized.
“The Democrats always say that they want a fairer tax system, but if you actually look at the details ... they're basically totally hands off on some of these left-wing charities, or left-wing advocacy groups that are masquerading as charities,” he said.
