Who Is Training the Next Generation of Conservative Leaders?

Bridget Ziegler, pictured above with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been doing her part to make America great again by standing strong with DeSantis in support of the “don’t say gay” law in public schools, and fighting to protect children from the influence of the LGBTQ community.

The co-founder of the ultra-conservative Moms for Liberty served until recently as president of the Sarasota County School Board. Ziegler currently heads up school board programs for the Leadership Institute, where according to her page on LinkedIn, she develops and leads the nation’s premier programs for conservative school board and education leaders.

Ziegler and her husband, Florida Republican Party chair Christian Ziegler, are a power couple and a force to be reckoned with in their tireless efforts to ban critical race theory, eliminate Black history and restrict the rights of trans people. Family values, no doubt, are the driving force in the Ziegler’s’ quest to return America to traditional values.

Training the next generation of conservative leaders is Bridget Ziegler’s tagline on LinkedIn. But her house of cards looks to be collapsing fast. News outlets report Christian Ziegler has been accused of rape. It’s also reported that he and Bridget have been indulging themselves in a three-way with another woman. The Ziegler’s even have videotapes to prove it.

I suppose the hue and cry from the far right will be that those scurrilous Democrats are at it again, trying to smear yet another staunch defender of family values. But according to news reports, the Sarasota County School Board is pressing Ziegler to step down. It’s also reported that DeSantis and former Florida Republican governor Scott Perry are urging Christian Ziegler to step down as chair of Florida’s Republican Party.

Bridget, in reflecting on a tumultuous past year, observed on her Facebook page, “The last year was certainly full of rough waters, challenges, and even a few disappointments. However, I believe it will prove to be the beginning of the most transformational years for the Sarasota County School Board, in which years of tolerating people, policies, and practices…will no longer be tolerated.”

Transformational, indeed. She does not, however, elaborate on the “people, policies, and practices” in question. Her use of the word “tolerating” is telling. What she’s really saying is that people with different points of view or orientation are not acceptable. This from a woman who reportedly digs getting it on with another woman and her husband. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, except for the obvious hypocrisy.

Ziegler’s words contrast with those of Tom Edwards, a fellow Sarasota school board member who self-identifies as gay, and who demonstrated empathy and kindness when he told a reporter in the wake of the Ziegler’s’ scandal, “If you are the parents of trans children, or if you are an LGBTQ+ adolescent, you need to know there is nothing wrong with you. You are right as rain. You are just you. It’s just a different orientation.”

In an ethical and authentic world, Tom Edwards represents traditional values and the conviction that we are all created equal. He stands for tolerance in an increasingly intolerant world. Edwards reminds us of how we used to be…a people that cared for and looked out for each other.

As for the Ziegler’s, a power couple and force to be reckoned with, I’d love to be a fly on the wall when their kids are old enough to ask them, “what’s a threesome?” And just like that, their star is plummeting. Now who will train the next generation of conservative leaders?