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Trump signs executive order to dismantle US Department of Education (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that instructs the US education secretary, Linda McMahon, to start dismantling the Department of Education, seemingly attempting to circumvent the need to obtain congressional approval to formally close a federal department.

The administration may eventually pursue an effort to get Congress to shut down the agency, Trump said at a signing ceremony at the White House on Thursday, because its budget had more than doubled in size in recent years but national test scores had not improved.

The federal government does not mandate curriculum in schools; that has been the responsibility of state and local governments, which provide 90% of the funding to schools. Nevertheless, at the White House, Trump repeated his campaign promise to “send education back to the states”.

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[–] 7 points 2 years ago* (6 children)

So it’s ignorant to use the avenues of influence at my disposal? It’s only ignorant if I expect results. It’s more ignorant to expect them to know what their constituents want without informing them.

What do you propose we do instead?

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago* (5 children)

    It absolutely is if you're constantly taking an hour of your day writing or on hold to speak to a guy who has historically never done anything you've asked them to (but blames it on a dude he works with, both of whom get elected on the dime of the same guy).

    Take that time to join a worker's organization, or organizing to unionize your workplace, or engaging in mutual aid, or anything that isn't talking to the guy whose job is making sure workers think they have any influence over him instead of the people paying him, who always get whatever bills they want passed. The data is loud and clear.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)

    I’m currently disabled, but I can get out for a few hours at a time. I use that to protest. Daily messaging takes ~5 minutes. Each call takes 15-20 minutes including wait time. I’m all ears if you have any other suggestions.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I didn't say the protests were a waste of time, writing to congress is. Worker's organizations include a lot of disabled people and they actually do care, unlike democrats. Membership in a third party (that can also use all the help they can get and are actually engaging in mutual aid and not just profiteering) is the only way voting can get you anything from Dems, because as long as you vote for them they have all they want from you.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I’m still in support of replacing deadwood centrist Democrats with progressives. I personally believe we have a better chance in raising the primary and midterm voter turnout up from its current 20%, than to rally a state as big as NY behind a third-party in 18 months.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    Midterms are meaningless. What have Dems done to stop this? Absolutely jack shit. What did they do on his first term to mitigate the damage? Take some pictures and write some tweets?

    Donald Trump is willing to rule by decree and push his policies by force of arms if necessary. Short term "pragmatism" is exactly what led to this and it'll just dig a deeper hole.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago*

    They don’t have the majority votes to challenge an executive order. They motioned for a 15-day vote against Trump’s emergency order, and the Republican majority redefined the entire congressional calendar as a single day to avoid checking the President’s power. I disagree with the 10 Senators that voted in favor of the CR, but that wouldn’t have actually stopped anything. POTUS determines what essential departments remain open in a government shutdown. DOGE would keep cutting, ICE would keep deporting, and POTUS would keep writing executive orders.

    With that being said, I’m not in favor of more of the same. I simply think cleaning out and upgrading the Democratic Party is the better option with FPTP.

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