Ryan Walters is a Christian nationalist culture warrior who is using his position as Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction to promote far-right propaganda throughout the state's public school system.
On Sunday, Walters appeared at a special service held at right-wing pastor Jackson Lahmeyer's church in Tulsa, where he claimed that President Joe Biden wants to destroy Christianity, the family, the schools, and the nation.
"President Joe Biden wants to destroy this country," Walters declared. "He wants to destroy our schools. He wants to destroy your family. And he wants to destroy our Christian faith."
"Let's be really clear, that is his end goal," Walters continued. "But let me tell you, not here in Oklahoma. It is absolutely not going to happen. We are going to be the tip of the spear to tell Joe Biden, 'This isn't communist China, this isn't California, this is Oklahoma.' This is where woke goes to die."
Walter is among the right-wing activists scheduled to speak at the Family Research Council's upcoming "Pray, Vote, Stand" conference. In our reporting on this summer’s Moms for Liberty conference, where Walters also spoke, Right Wing Watch noted:
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction, is waging a scorched-earth campaign against teachers and teachers unions, which he called “terrorist organizations” at a budget hearing in May; he has been accused of lying to legislators at that hearing. At a state board of education meeting, Walters played a five-minute video savaging teachers unions, a video so hostile—it included insinuations that teachers supported pedophilia—that educators feared it would incite physical attacks on public schools. His agency banned sexually explicit materials from school libraries without defining the term. After Trump’s recent indictment, Walters put out a press release headlined, “Joe Biden Leading a Banana Republic Coup Against American Justice,” an indication of his focus on MAGA politics and promotion of Trumpish conspiracy theories.
