Columnist Patrick Buchanan tried to mobilize “peasants with pitchforks” in his populist bid for the Republican nomination in 1996.

The “folks shouting down their local School boards” — today’s pitchfork wielders — don’t trust the lords of the manor, writes Fordham’s Adam Tyner. Experts have told too many “noble lies”.

On issues such as  “critical race theory” and “social and emotional learning,” parents suspect they’re not hearing the truth, he writes.

After all, does any field have a richer history of “benevolent lies” or a more well-worn revolving door for euphemistic BS than education? From the fears of a “deficit lens” to unease with terms as anodyne as “learning loss,” the education world has long been rife with denial and worse.

A recent Education Week story declared that black students are more likely to be suspended, but “not because they misbehave more,” Tyner notes. The claim defies common sense and research, he writes.

Given the differences in poverty rates and rates of children being raised by single parents — not to mention prejudice faced by Black students — how could there not also be differences, on average, in how they behave?

. . . Black students are more than twice as likely to report having recently gotten in a fight at school as their White classmates, according to federal surveys. Every survey of administrators and teachers I’ve ever seen points in this direction, as well.

“Like the early advice on using masks to combat the spread of Covid-19, it’s possible that the experts know the facts about learning loss, student misbehavior, or other issues, but just think the public would be better off not knowing them,” Tyner writes. But it’s impossible to design good policies based on bad information.

Everyone has the internet, he adds. “When regular people can’t trust the experts to give it to them straight, they go elsewhere to look for answers. And what they find doing their own ‘research’ — whether more accurate than what the experts say or not — will inevitably lead some of them to pick up a pitchfork.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland has told the FBI to investigate possible threats and harassment of school officials by people protesting masking mandates, curriculum and other school policies. Garland acted days after the National School Boards Association equated protesters to “domestic terrorists.”

I agree with Robby Soave’s take: Angry parents have every right to express their views.

They’re showing up to public meetings to exercise their First Amendment rights and participate in the democratic process of managing a public institution. And they often encounter furious resistance from public officials, who have turned off microphones, ended comment periods early, and occasionally mocked parents behind their backs.

It’s true that some school board meetings have turned raucous, and undoubtedly there are examples of parents overreacting, or even engaging in harassment. But there’s no evidence whatsoever that this represents some great danger necessitating the involvement of the FBI.

Saturday Night Live had a skit on Oct. 2 in which crazy, stupid parents yelled at calm, sensible school board members. SNL has been the establishment for a long time now.

Here’s Howard Beale from Network, made in 1976, giving his “mad as hell” rant.