So, friends, how did the people of Plattsmouth, a quaint community in Cass County, Nebraska, get here? We’ll explain as quickly as we can, because time is short and folks are voting on this very issue as we write this.
The Genesis of Terri Cunningham-Swanson
By all accounts, Terri had a troubled past. In adulthood, at least one of her multiple husbands was abusive to her and her four sons. The one son willing to stand up to her has made allegations of sexual, physical, and mental abuse and cruelty, all suffered at the hands of not only the men Terri married, but also his own mother. He stated at the May 8, 2023 Plattsmouth School Board meeting that when his mother found out he was gay, she removed him from public school and forced him into homeschooling and work. Like, as in actual employment. Now, we’re not experts on child-rearing here, but that sounds like abuse to us. But never mind the fact that her children were victims of abuse. All Terri really cares about is that you know she’s a victim and feel sorry for her. Also, being a victim makes her an expert on relationships. But more on that later.
That right there should tell you something about this woman and her vendetta against public schools. She believes they turned her son gay.
Terri dismisses his allegations as him wanting attention in her September 8, 2023 interview with Scott Voorhees, who also sympathizes with Terri and not her son (but Voorhees is a judgmental, hateful piece of work himself). Her attitude toward her gay son should tell you another thing about her mindset, which is not unlike that of her follower, Lisa Winterstien. Lisa mocked a minor’s sexual assault.
It’s clear that like attracts like with these sociopaths and maybe one day, we’ll give Lisa and her unhinged husband, Derek Winterstien, the coverage they deserve. The same goes for expert gaslighter, Aubreeann Patterson, who loves to pretend to care about minors, preach that Halloween is a work of darkness (she sure sounds like a fun mommy!), and spell her name out backwards because she’s an idiot. The posts above are directly from the Recall Terri Cunningham-Swanson support group (which is public, because they have nothing to hide) and the dumpster fire of another Facebook group known as “The Original Plattsmouth Town Crier” (which is run by the two most useless admins ever).
So, yeah. This is the self-appointed virtue brigade full of good Christians who just want to protect minors… and also re-traumatize adults over the sexual assault they suffered as minors.
In Terri’s warped mind, it’s clear that children must be forced and trained into being good little cis-gendered heterosexuals, and that mental health – her own or anyone else’s – is not a concern. Considering she spends all her time reading only sex scenes and language that she claims disturbs her and keeps her awake at night, she really ought to seek professional help.
But we digress. Terri states on her campaign website that she worked as a para and bus driver in multiple different school districts around Omaha and Bellevue, both much larger cities than Plattsmouth. She also states “Parents and Grandparents need to be intimately involved in the education of their children and know what is happening in the schools in their community” as if there’s some huge conspiracy theory in public schools. Spoiler alert: of course she believes that’s exactly what’s happening!
She also makes it sound like she is somehow an expert on children, and that she moved further south because she developed a distaste for big cities.
After all we’ve seen with the path to this recall election, we have to wonder if she burned all of her bridges in Omaha and Bellevue, and moved south because nobody knew her there. Because as a woman who has been fired from multiple jobs, sometimes by her own friends, maybe she was looking for a fresh start. A new place to set down her — let’s pull no punches here — fascist roots.
After Terri Cunningham-Swanson “set down roots” in Plattsmouth, she worked as a bus driver at two different school districts in Cass County… and stuck with both for less than a year. She blames illness and her supervisors, among other things for these frequent job changes, but never herself.
If she’s ever honest, we have yet to see it. Goal posts are always moving with her.
She claims in her September 8, 2023 interview on KFAB that she decided to run for school board in a small town because of God or some such nonsense, and that she submitted her candidacy on the last day, which was March 1, 2022. Isn’t it funny that sometime in February of 2022, she was in Bellevue watching a showing of The Mind Polluters?
Wasn’t that just perfect serendipity, for her to put her own personal agenda to work in a place where nobody knew her, or what they were in for?
Finally, her favorite claim is that she was incredibly transparent during the campaign, but this is not correct. She has claimed again and again in her interviews with KFAB and Fearless With Mark and Amber (the creators of the shitshow that is The Mind Polluters) that she told voters she would go into schools and remove material she found objectionable.
While her website refers to her as a “conservative firewall,” and states that she is against Critical Race Theory (CRT), Social Emotional Learning (SEL), and Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE), it does not state that she intended to go into the school libraries and start removing books that gave her the icks.
She is also against “woke ideologies”. For those who don’t comprehend the actual definition and idea of woke, let’s explain. Woke means alert to racial prejudice and discrimination. That’s it. That’s the definition.
Terri would rather people, especially high school students not be aware that there is prejudice and discrimination in the world, because they might actually do something about it or, at the very least, not grow up to be assholes like her. Ironically enough, she has also berated people in her support group to “wake up” and see what is being taught in public schools. Which is absolutely not cultural Marxism, as she claims. Her detachment from reality and the real world is shared by all of her followers.
Hindsight is 20/20 for Plattsmouth voters, many of whom aren’t ashamed to say they’re sorry they voted for her. Scrolling through her personal Facebook posts show her abhorrence for anything regarding inclusivity, diversity, and accepting people’s genders and sexualities as they are, not to mention rational thought in general.
She also states she was the only candidate who let everyone know where she stood on the issues. Issues that have nothing to do with a school board, like filling out the Voter Information Project survey about her views on abortion. We’re not sure why anyone needs to know any of that about her. We’re also not sure why they chose to write a snarky post clearly endorsing Terri in this recall election.
By the way, beware Kathy Holkeboer and her definition of “non-partisan.” Especially since Kathy spoke at the State Board of Education Business Meeting on April 2, 2021, to express her opposition of public school health standards alongside a long list of people with hate group affiliations, including Maris Bentley, Fanchon Blythe, Mark Bonkiewicz, Allie French, and Brittany Holtmeyer. Nice company she keeps.
Back to Terri Cunningham-Swanson, though! Somehow, even as a total unknown, she came in fourth out of five candidates for Plattsmouth School Board during the November 2022 election, receiving 1,580 votes. The four candidates with the highest amounts of votes won seats on the board. It’s interesting to note that of those voters who have expressed regret for electing her, some admitted their only reason for voting for her was that she is a woman.
The school also hosts a night to get to know candidates. However, that event isn’t well advertised. At the time, the Plattsmouth Journal ran an article (October 18, 2022; only available behind the Fremont Tribune paywall) discussing the candidates’ views from that event. However, the Plattsmouth Journal ceased operation in January of 2023 and the people of Plattsmouth have only a daily newsletter of sorts called the Cassgram to rely on for snippets about their community. This means most people vote for people they know, names they recognize, don’t vote at all, or go “eenie meenie miney moe.” This is a problem we’ve observed in many of Nebraska’s small towns, but we’ll get to that in future posts.
Looking at Terri’s picture on the Plattsmouth School Board website, she presents herself as a sweet-looking, mild-mannered, middle-aged granny.
But as teachers, students, parents and her fellow board members in Plattsmouth soon found out, she’s a fucking terror.
