Make American Kids Dumb and Segregated Again
The Trump Administration's attack on the Department of Education and college universities is the culmination of a decades-long plan to restore white supremacy, undo progress, and profit off our kids.
Keep the kids dumb and ignorant so those who don’t die in school shootings or from measles grow up to be easily controlled, confused, exhausted workers who work until death not realizing they spent their lives being used, abused, and exploited by the one percent.
That’s America’s future under GOP leadership.
It’s a great grift, especially for billionaires and those who profit from private prisons and charter schools.
Public schools have always been the epicenter of the right-wing culture war since the Supreme Court ruled segregation was unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. Abortion, feminism, and LGBTQ+ rights were eventually added to the never-ending list of right-wing grievances. The Department of Education, established in 1979 by President Carter, has been in their sights for the past 45 years. It administers federal assistance programs, oversees the national education policy, distributes federal financial aid, and enforces federal education laws prohibiting discrimination. This important and necessary institution is an anathema to a conservative movement that wants to break apart the government, privatize, sell the parts to billionaires, and punt everything back to states so they can go back to the good ol’ days of the 19th century.
For decades, individuals like Betsy Devos, the billionaire maven of charter schools who served as Trump’s first Sec. of Education, have tried to weaken public schools and dismantle the Department of Education. With his second Administration, Trump has finally accomplished that goal with Linda McMahon, his second billionaire Sec. of Education. Yesterday, he signed an Executive Order ending the department that employs more than 4,000 people. On its face, the order has no legal teeth, but that doesn’t matter anymore. Just like USAID, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and NIH, it will eventually be gutted.
MAGA Reeks like Senator Bill Cassidy, the doctor from Louisiana who voted for anti-vaxxer RFK JR., have already signaled they’ll be introducing legislation to placate their King. Unsurprisingly, Louisiana consistently ranks near the bottom of US states when it comes to education. Speaking of rankings, the US just logged its lowest spot in the World Happiness Report released earlier this week. However, the pain and suffering are worth it because at least we’re protecting the kids from transgender athletes. The Trump Administration just suspended $175 million in funding to UPenn for allowing a trans swimmer three years ago. There are more anti-trans bills than trans athletes, but no significant bills have been advanced to keep our children safe from gun violence, which is still the number one killer of kids and young teens in this country.
UPenn will most likely bend the knee and throw its LGBTQ+ students under the bus following in the footsteps of Columbia University which just caved to Trump’s bullying on Friday in hopes of restoring $400 million in federal funding. Under the pretext of protecting students from anti-semitism, the most anti-semitic Administration targeted Columbia as a test case for its attack on universities. Shamelessly, Columbia, just like the Paul Weiss law firm, decided to succumb and be complicit with Trump’s authoritarian regime. The once-storied university will now ban masks, allow 36 campus police officers to remove people from campus or arrest them, and “oversee” (censor) the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department. This is happening while Columbia students, like Mahmoud Khalil, are being kidnapped and detained by the government for protesting against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Earlier this week, Badar Khan Suri, a Georgetown University postdoc fellow, was kidnapped and detained because his Palestinian American wife allegedly has scary views when it comes to Israel.
It was never about making America great again or helping our kids.
It’s about power, control, money, and white supremacy. Former representative and educator Jamaal Bowman eloquently broke down the long-term right-wing attack on public education during our interview for America Unhinged. (Check it out from the 34:00 mark.) In today’s episode of Democracy-ish, Danielle and I also expand on how Trump’s attack on the Dept. of Education and our universities is directly tied to a white nationalist project meant to erase all of us “DEI” hires and undo all the progress made by the Civil Rights Movement. For example, stemming from Trump’s Executive Order to roll back DEI initiatives, the Trump Administration no longer requires federal contracts to ban “segregated facilities.” They also scrubbed Jackie Robinson, Colin Powell, Black veterans, and Navajo Codetalkers from government websites. I’m sure it was just a coincidence caused by short-term economic anxiety. Then again, it could just be racism.
It seems to make America white again, you have to keep the kids dumb, ignorant, poor, and with a healthy chance of getting measles.
It’s all been said before, but this administration, these right wing crazies, want to destroy everything that makes our country great. They want to destroy public education and in my state and others, have let vouchers ( often for the rich in private schools) overwhelm state budgets. They want religion in our schools to not only make our kids dumb, but also to indoctrinate them into the racist, misogynist society they envision. And people voted for this garbage which is reprehensible.
It is endlessly ironic that Donald Trump fails to acknowledge that he was only able to attend Wharton/U Penn cause he was a DEI acceptance; prove me wrong. Shamelessness has no greater king.