One America News host Dan Ball decided to take a camera crew to his child’s school board meeting and turn an anti-trans rant about putting tampon dispensers in boys bathrooms into a stunt for air. Although access to OAN is limited, Ball was attempting to inject an anti-trans narrative into the public discourse by encouraging viewers to follow his lead at their local school boards.
This tirade is in line with Ball’s history of making anti-trans remarks and his zeal for disrupting school board meetings. The Real America host previously appeared before the board to rant about COVID-19 conspiracies and masking until his microphone was cut off.
Ball rehashed his gripe with COVID-19 mandates, saying that now the school board wants to “add insult to injury” by providing tampon machines in the bathrooms for “a small group of people who have mental issues.” Ball, outraged by the machines, characterized the installation of menstrual product dispensers as a “ridiculous move you guys have made to cater to the transgender community.”
Ball also interviewed other attendees at the meeting with a TV microphone, further turning his child’s school district into a spectacle for his show.
Ball’s stunts fit into a trend of attacking school boards, which began with COVID-19 misinformation rants and critical race theory tantrums. OAN played a role in fueling the outrage around school boards and, in 2021, this tactic was mobilized by the right as a political strategy in Loudoun County, Virginia, by spinning CRT and manufacturing hysteria to motivate voters through anger and fear.
In the segment aired on OAN on September 21, Ball included some of the anti-trans tirades of other meeting attendees. Ball also brought two of the parents who attended the school board meeting on air to warn the viewers that “they” are coming for your children. His segment was a clear call to action for viewers, with one “concerned parent” saying, “Just like you say, Dan, like, you can't just complain about it if you don't do anything about it. We all need to band together and do something about this.”
By teeing up further action from viewers, Ball invited the continued targeting of school board meetings as a tactic to push culture war topics to center stage of the upcoming 2022 midterms.
