EVENTUALLY, "GROOMER" MIGHT BECOME A SYNONYM FOR "NOT REPUBLICAN"

This, from The Washington Post's Colby Itkowitz, is the standard mainstream narrative on the right's use of the word "groomer":

The rapid escalation in public support for the LGBTQ community’s rights in recent years had quieted much of the blatant homophobia in the nation’s political discourse. But, in recent weeks, Republicans have reverted to verbal and legal assaults on the community, sometimes employing baseless tropes that suggest children are being groomed or recruited by defenders of gay rights. The efforts ahead of the midterm elections are intended to rile up the Republican base and fill the campaign coffers of its candidates, without offering evidence that any Democrat had committed a repugnant crime.

But it's possible that Republicans have only begun to explore the ways they can weaponize this word. Watch this clip from Glenn Beck:

By focusing on Social Emotional Learning, the federal government and woke activists are using our schools and taxpayer dollars to churn out "justice-oriented civic engagement" kids behind parents' backs. In english, that's CHILD ACTIVISTS. They ARE groomers, period. pic.twitter.com/CrnduTAxaI

— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck) April 21, 2022

While the words PROJECT GROOMER appear over his shoulder, Beck says:

Whatever the mumbo-jubbo gibberish topic of the day is, they're doing it. As seen here, the entire brainwashing program starts at pre-school, evolves through the entirety of a child's schooling -- and remember, this program is designed to be integrated in every class: math, English, history, everything! While we send our most precious off to school every morning, they are getting Progressive Crazy 101.

He mentions CRT and CSE -- critical race theory and comprehensive sexuality education -- but his targets aren't limited to those:

This is the larger program they're trying to protect. This is why the Department of Education is now going into overdrive to shut down charter schools and any other form of school choice: They've got to keep their progressive woke assembly line running. In their own words, the public system is churning out "justice-oriented civic engagement" kids. In English, that means child activists....

They're being lobbied now to make SEL the dominant form of curriculum at publical schools. Leftist activists are lobbying for it right now, right under our noses. And what are we doing about it? We can see what turning unqualified teachers into brainwashing psychiatrists are doing to our kids. Child suicides are spiking, and the left says, "It's a mystery! It's mystifying!" No, it's not! It's quite plain!

The left doesn't like the term "groomer." Well, what do you call an adult that thinks it's their moral duty to stand between a parent and their kids on ideological matters when it comes to Marxism and sex and gender preferences? They're grooming our children for their own warped ideological views, and they are doing it without our consent, and they're doing it with our taxpayer dollars. They are groomers, period!

"SEL" is Social-Emotional Learning. When the state of Florida rejected a large number of math textbooks recently, the reasons weren't limited to critical race theory:

Reasons for rejecting textbooks included references to critical race theory, "inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics," the [Florida press] release states.

So what is SEL? Judd Legum and two co-authors examined some of the textbooks that were rejected by the state of Florida, demonstrating more initiative than mainstream news outlets, all of which seem to be waiting for the state to spoon-feed them information on the texts. Here's what Legum et al. say about SEL:

SEL focuses on the development of "critical thinking, emotion management, conflict resolution, decision making, [and] teamwork" — skills that are necessary for students to excel in school and in life. The term dates back to a 1997 book but the concept of character development dates back at least to Benjamin Franklin in the mid-1700s....

SEL ... focuses on "social and emotional competence" and helping “children develop emotional literacy when it comes to their feelings and other people’s.”

Here are a couple of examples from the rejected textbooks. You might want to sit down and brace yourself for this Marxist brainwashing:

Omigod -- they're teaching kids to be cooperative and respectful of others! THIS IS PURE COMMUNISM!

Legum and his co-authors note that Governor DeSantis, when asked about the books, emphasized SEL, not CRT, though he doesn't seem to know what SEL actually is, only that it's bad:

In a press conference on Monday, DeSantis defended the decision, focusing on SEL....

"You know, math is about getting the right answer and we want kids to learn to think so they get the right answer. It’s not about how you feel about the problem or to introduce some of these other things," DeSantis said....

Asked during the press conference what CRT would look like in a math textbook, DeSantis demurred, returning to SEL. "You do have things like social and emotional learning," DeSantis responded, "and some of the things that are more political in there."

Whatever you think about SEL, it has nothing to do with sex or gender. But here's Ron DeSantis hinting that it will become the next booga-booga term on the right, and here's Glenn Beck saying that SEL advocates are "groomers."

The Beck clip may be an early sign that the right intends to broaden the meaning of "groomer" so it means "anyone who advocates ideas right-wingers don't like in the presence of children." And maybe after that they'll drop the last five words. The new meaning of a word that used to mean "adult who attempts to lure a child into sexual assault" will be "anyone who's not Republican."

Remember what the right-wing propagandist Christopher Rufo said about critical race theory:

...he wrote on Twitter that his goal was to conflate any number of topics into a new bucket called critical race theory.

“We have successfully frozen their brand—'critical race theory’—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category,” Rufo wrote. “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

That could be what's about to happen to the word "groomer." Everything liberal or even moderate will be "grooming." Just for disagreeing with them on policy, we'll all bear the stigma of a word that's linked to horrific acts, if they succeed.