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All right.
We have to talk about Betsy DeVos, why your kids are being shoved back into schools without a plan, the intentional destruction of public education, white supremacy and the Evangelical Right.
Here's what I learned writing AMERICAN RULE.
1/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/american-rule-by-jared-yates-sexton/
We have to talk about Betsy DeVos, why your kids are being shoved back into schools without a plan, the intentional destruction of public education, white supremacy and the Evangelical Right.
Here's what I learned writing AMERICAN RULE.
1/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/611439/american-rule-by-jared-yates-sexton/
First things first, we have to stop treating the Trump Administration like it's a traditional administration.
It isn't. It's a systematic, anti-administration that is obsessed with dismantling government as a public good. That's what it's doing.
2/ https://www.themuckrake.com/main/no-plan
It isn't. It's a systematic, anti-administration that is obsessed with dismantling government as a public good. That's what it's doing.
2/ https://www.themuckrake.com/main/no-plan
Betsy DeVos was picked as Secretary of Education specifically because she is anti-public education.
She has spent her energy and wealth intentionally destroying the public school system. That's why she's in charge now. So she can destroy it.
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She has spent her energy and wealth intentionally destroying the public school system. That's why she's in charge now. So she can destroy it.
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It is not a coincidence that Trump filled out his cabinet with people who were openly in favor of destroying the department they were put in charge of.
The Trump Administration is a projection with the express purpose of dismantling government as a public good.
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The Trump Administration is a projection with the express purpose of dismantling government as a public good.
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DeVos and her family have constantly used their wealth to manipulate reality and politics, including their creation of the completely illusory "Reopen Movement" that intended to create a virtual movement of people begging to reopen the government.
It was all a lie.
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It was all a lie.
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Similarly, it is a lie that the American Right was mobilized by things like the abortion debate.
They aren't pro-life. It's a political cudgel meant to divide people and win elections.
The GOP is motivated and organized by explicit white patriarchal supremacy.
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They aren't pro-life. It's a political cudgel meant to divide people and win elections.
The GOP is motivated and organized by explicit white patriarchal supremacy.
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The modern Republican Party has its genesis in the debate over segregation and civil rights. The shift in politics took place as segregation was challenged and the apartheid-like system in America was troubled.
This white supremacy is what fuels the modern Right.
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This white supremacy is what fuels the modern Right.
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The Right as we know it was obsessed with maintaining segregation and ensuring that African Americans received lesser educations, less benefits, and less public assistance.
We see that reflected now with battles over who the government should help and revolving around race.
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We see that reflected now with battles over who the government should help and revolving around race.
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What people like DeVos want is a segregated system where people of color and poor whites are kept from education, all the while indoctrinating history/politics/and religion keep them readily susceptible to propaganda and free of "subversive" ideas.
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To understand this moment, we have to focus on Jerry Falwell, Sr., a southern, Neo-Confederate preacher who regularly used his pulpit to speak out against desegregation, calling it an affront to God and against the teachings of the Christian Bible.
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As I've detailed in my writings about the Cult of the Shining City, Falwell was a descendant of Confederate preachers who claimed God was white supremacists and that a white-dominated culture of slavery and inequality was that racist God's wish for the world.
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Falwell's was explicit about desegregation, saying where God drawn a line man should not cross it.
He used Christianity to support white supremacy, creating a church obsessed with money, power, and white supremacy, and claimed opponents were traitors and sinners.
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He used Christianity to support white supremacy, creating a church obsessed with money, power, and white supremacy, and claimed opponents were traitors and sinners.
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Like other segregationists, Falwell vilified Civil Rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., claiming they were communist agitators and that they were doing the work of the Devil by advocating for equal rights.
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The American Right was obsessed with the idea that MLK was a communist agent and Civil Rights was a terrorist movement dedicated to destroying America
If that sounds familiar, it should. That conspiracy theory has attacked every movement for civil rights in American history
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If that sounds familiar, it should. That conspiracy theory has attacked every movement for civil rights in American history
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As a result, law enforcement and Southerners treated Civil Rights protesters as if they were traitors and attempting to destroy America.
The violence we saw was motivated by the conspiracy theory that people like Falwell propagated and that paranoid reality.
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The violence we saw was motivated by the conspiracy theory that people like Falwell propagated and that paranoid reality.
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Southerners protested desegregation, openly espousing white supremacy and behaving as if they were being invaded by communists and traitors. They lashed out, embraced violence, murdered their fellow Americans.
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In this time, white supremacists like George Wallace made a show of resisting federal efforts to desegregate, bringing the country to the point of crisis and instigating and inspiring unbelievable violence.
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Wallace and other segregationists used the iconography of the Confederacy to push their beliefs, again dividing the country and energizing the same conspiracy theories and white supremacy that led to the Civil War in the first place.
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Segregationists lost the political battle as public schools desegregated, but people like Falwell decided on a workaround.
Private schools could segregate without federal oversight. This private model allowed white supremacy to continue unabated.
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Private schools could segregate without federal oversight. This private model allowed white supremacy to continue unabated.
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These segregation academies provided "safe harbor" for white students who didn't want to be in desegregated schools.
Many of them embraced Confederate iconography and ideals while hiding behind the private and Christian school veneer.
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Many of them embraced Confederate iconography and ideals while hiding behind the private and Christian school veneer.
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Falwell, gaining power because of his white supremacist beliefs and glorification of wealth and power, was an ally of Ronald Reagan as Reagan and his cronies pushed a hypercapitalistic society.
They were natural partners and the private school innovation fell right in line.
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They were natural partners and the private school innovation fell right in line.
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The America Falwell and Reagan pushed was a country that worshiped a white supremacist, nationalist God, pushed supernatural conspiracy theories, and sought to dismantle government while privatizing public projects for the express purpose of obscene profit and power.
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Pushed by his handlers, Reagan upended the American economy, creating a top-down model where the wealthy grew wealthier and everyone else stayed stagnant or lost ground.
In this environment, government was being dismantled and privatized.
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In this environment, government was being dismantled and privatized.
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Public institutions were privatized quickly and gave rise to abominations like the private prison industry, which served white supremacy while lining the profits of the wealthy.
The racism of the Confederacy, and white paranoia, was always just below the surface.
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The racism of the Confederacy, and white paranoia, was always just below the surface.
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Of course, no conversation about this privatized shift in power would be complete without mentioning that Betsy DeVos's brother Erik Prince has made so much money by selling his mercenaries in our neverending war and has recently even privatized "intelligence services."
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Knowing this history, it's clearer now what Jared Kushner was saying about the "federal stockpile" of resources.
Trump and his cronies work in this mindset where the government is meant to redistribute wealth and power to the wealthy and power, not in the common good.
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Trump and his cronies work in this mindset where the government is meant to redistribute wealth and power to the wealthy and power, not in the common good.
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As I've written about, Trump has become a messiah to the Neo-Confederate Evangelical Right because he naturally embodies their actual ideology: the worship of wealth, power, and white supremacy.
It is this bizarre and dangerous relationship that plagues us to this day.
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It is this bizarre and dangerous relationship that plagues us to this day.
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The horrifying truth is that Trump doesn't care to lead. There's no plan to keep your kids safe because that would cost money he wants to redistribute to the wealthy and powerful.
This isn't a normal presidency. It's a total destruction of public government.
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This isn't a normal presidency. It's a total destruction of public government.
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Trump is surrounded by people to help in that destruction, people like DeVos who are obsessed with ending public education and pushing "school choice," or a final redistribution of wealth to private academies that are inherently privileged and pro-segregation.
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The Trump Administration creates crises. That's the actual plan. The public school system is being dismantled, and this push to reopen in the fall without direction is part of that plan.
Unfortunately, you and your kids don't factor into it.
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Unfortunately, you and your kids don't factor into it.
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Just like Lee Atwater told us, the Republican Party hides its white supremacy and racism behind issues like "taxes" and schooling.
But it's right there. It is THE motivating factor of the GOP. In schools, in taxes. This is the philosophy that animated the modern GOP.
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But it's right there. It is THE motivating factor of the GOP. In schools, in taxes. This is the philosophy that animated the modern GOP.
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All of the white supremacy and pursuit of profit and power is hidden underneath a very thin veneer of governance
But make no mistake. Trump and DeVos have no intention to use government for public good. They're there to destroy it and twist it into something else entirely
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But make no mistake. Trump and DeVos have no intention to use government for public good. They're there to destroy it and twist it into something else entirely
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