ROGER KIMBALL: Garland Attempts to Silence Opponents, But They Will Vote.

As of this writing, at least eleven the school boards associations of at least 11 states have withdrawn from the National School Boards Association.

I hope the number will rise to 50.

As many readers will know, the NSBA, a left-wing lobbying group, made headlines a couple of weeks ago.

Merrick Garland, attorney general of the United States, cited a letter from the group to the White House complaining about parents who had the temerity to vigorously criticize their local school boards for attempting to insinuate the Marxist teachings of “critical race theory” into schools, foisting virtue-signaling mask mandates on students, and injecting noisome gender-identity politics into primary and secondary schools.

The vocal criticism of those parents, the NSBA letter said, was “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.”

In response, Garland quickly issued a memorandum instructing the FBI and other DOJ entities to create a “Partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.”

What threats?

The NSBA cites a score of incidents, but almost all involve nothing more than parents loudly criticizing members of their school board. A good example is this splendid performance by a parent called Simon Campbell, a Brit who understands the American Constitution much better than many Americans.

One example where there was violence involved Scott Smith, who was tackled by police, arrested, and found guilty of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Smith claimed that his daughter had been raped by a “gender fluid” boy who entered the girl’s bathroom wearing a skirt.

At first the school denied that anything happened.

We now know that Smith was right and that the boy in question not only raped his daughter but then, having been quietly sent to another school, went on to sexually assault another girl.

Nice crew you’re covering for, Merrick. Plus: “Despite the best efforts of the regime media to bury stories like the Attorney General’s police state memorandum, the word is getting out and people are angry and getting angrier.”

Related: Merrick Garland has proved himself unfit for Supreme Court — but he shouldn’t be AG either.