Author and longtime GOP political operative Stuart Stevens is a lifer tradcon (traditional conservative) who, once the architect of Mitt Romney‘s presidential campaign, opposed the emergence of Donald Trump as the Republican standard-bearer from the beginning.
Now Stevens is taking aim at Trump’s running mate JD Vance, and accusing the GOP VP nominee of lying about schools and stoking fears that radical agendas are demeaning education and hobbling American students.
[NOTE: Vance himself admitted recently, after being accused of spreading the now famously debunked fictitious story about Ohio-based Haitians eating pets, that he is willing “to create stories” — regardless of their accuracy — to draw attention to his political points.]
In the video below, Vance claims that American public schools have foregone teaching arithmetic and other core competencies, purportedly in favor of “indoctrinating” children with “radical” Leftist viewpoints.
Refuting Vance’s claims, Stevens offers to donate $100K to charity if Vance can back up his assertions– and name a school that is not teaching students that 5 + 5 is 10. Or a school that teaches, as Vance claims, that there are “87 genders.”
I will donate $100,000 to the non-Russian charity of his choice if J.D. Vance can name one public school that doesn’t teach 5 plus 5 is 10, and there are 87 genders. https://t.co/7Q2kPdSTdY
— Stuart Stevens (@stuartpstevens) September 29, 2024
Stevens — who has worked as a strategist for such dyed-in-the-wool Republicans as Indiana Sen. Dan Coats (Intelligence Director under Trump), Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, and Missouri Sen. Roy Blount — also slides in a dig at Vance’s outspoken isolationism and ostensible Russian fealty, qualifying his promise by saying he will donate only to Vance’s favorite “non-Russian charity.”
Stevens, who shared the posts below, sees his Grand Old Party as having become debased by attraction to autocracy, and ruined by a bothsidesism that permits tolerance — and even celeration — of the dictatorial Putin and Russia.
This is the sign of political madness. The blind obedience of MAGA’s devoted to an ignorant and lawless leader. Putin a criminal thug. A dictator. An enemy to the free world. Incredibly corrupt. He is brutalizing a democracy in Europe. What are we becoming? https://t.co/VbmxJpHTHp
— Barry R McCaffrey (@mccaffreyr3) September 27, 2024
Stevens, like many Americans who abhor the disingenuous promotion of a false equivalence between Russian aggressors and Ukrainian victims, also shared the exchange below, which Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman characterized as “sociopathic.”
Only a sociopath would think like this.
Zelenskyy, the President of a nation fighting for survival, having suffered endless tragedies, stands next to @realDonaldTrump and Don says he has very good relations with the dictator, unprovoked aggressor, Putin who inflicted those… https://t.co/X6MyltXwsA
— Alexander S. Vindman (@AVindman) September 27, 2024