“Imagine the Scores”: Republicans Say the Quiet Part Out Loud—Again

Every few years, Republicans insist they’ve changed. That the party of segregation, voter suppression, and “states’ rights” is a relic of the past. And then, inevitably, they remind us exactly who they’ve always been.

This time, it comes courtesy of reported leaked group chat messages from members of the New Hampshire House Education Committee—messages so blunt, so grotesque, that they strip away decades of euphemisms and dog whistles in one fell swoop.

According to the leaked chat, Education Committee Chair Rep. Kristin Noble allegedly floated the idea of whites-only schools.

“When we have segregated schools we can add all the fun stuff lol,” Noble reportedly wrote.
“Imagine the scores though, if we had schools for them and some for us!”

That isn’t coded language.
That isn’t a misunderstanding.
That is segregation—laughed about, fantasized over, and framed as policy brainstorming.

And it didn’t happen in isolation.

Laughter as Policy

Rather than objecting, Assistant Majority Leader Rep. Katy Peternel reportedly reacted with a laughing emoji.

Not outrage.
Not disbelief.
Not even awkward silence.

Laughter.

This matters, because what’s being revealed here isn’t just one lawmaker’s racism—it’s a culture. A space where elected officials, entrusted with shaping public education, feel comfortable joking about racial apartheid like it’s a retro classroom upgrade.

The emoji tells you everything you need to know.

Education Is the Target—Because It Always Is

Authoritarian movements have a consistent playbook:
control education, rewrite history, and separate children early.

Public schools are one of the last places where democracy, pluralism, and shared civic reality still exist. That’s why the modern Republican Party attacks them relentlessly—through book bans, curriculum censorship, attacks on teachers, and now, apparently, nostalgic flirting with segregation.

The obsession with “test scores” is not accidental. It’s the same tired pseudoscience that has always been used to justify inequality—strip context, ignore systemic deprivation, then pretend the results are proof of superiority.

It’s racism dressed up as data analysis, with a “lol” slapped on top.

“Same as the Old Republican Party”

None of this is new. It’s not a deviation. It’s a regression to the mean.

This is the party that:

• Fought desegregation tooth and nail

• Opposed the Civil Rights Act

• Built its modern coalition on backlash to racial equality

• Now brands diversity as “indoctrination” and history as “wokeness”

The rhetoric has evolved. The intent has not.

The mask slips more often now because it doesn’t have to stay on. The base doesn’t punish this behavior—they reward it. Cruelty is currency. Outrage is the point. And nostalgia for hierarchy is the unifying ideology.

This Is Why Local Power Matters

These aren’t anonymous trolls. These are state legislators. Committee chairs. Party leadership.

They decide what children learn.
Whose history matters.
Who belongs—and who doesn’t.

When people say “it can’t happen here,” this is what here looks like before it gets worse: jokes in private chats, laughter instead of condemnation, and silence from party leadership afterward.

Democracy doesn’t usually collapse with a bang. It erodes while people laugh.

And sometimes, they even add an emoji.

Photo By Wikipedia