Will Forcing Kids and Teachers Back to School Be Trump's Waterloo?
By Thom Hartmann A...
Trump's first major policy change on his first full day as president was to gut implementation of the "Waters of America" Act.His change allowed coal mines and factories to increase their profits by dumping massive amounts of poison in our rivers and waterways.
He got away with it because he only poisoned the people downstream of our waterways, and so only a few million people had their children neurologically damaged by things like mercury. His action will be diluted by time itself: it'll only produce a few hundred thousand cases of cancer, and those will come about in a scattershot fashion over the next few decades.
But now that he is trying to force every school in America to open in the next few weeks, he's threatening to "poison" every school in America with COVID-19, which will very rapidly hit over a hundred million Americans both directly and indirectly.
Trump has gotten away with closing or weakening over 100 different federal regulatory agencies that protect people from being poisoned, defrauded, or otherwise harmed by bad corporate actors and grifters.
But each one of those agencies only protected a slice of America, so there was never a large and loud enough response to his policies to capture the attention of virtually all of the American people.
Even his decision to do nothing about a foreign power paying bounties to kill American soldiers only directly affected military families.
But this school policy will hit a massive number of people, and do so in a very short period of time.
For the first time, tens of millions and maybe over a hundred million Americans will all realize at the same time that Trump's incompetence and malice could lead to their own illness or even death.
Which raises the question: will this be Trump's Waterloo, and cripple the ability of Republican elected officials on both the state and federal level to get reelected?
Or will he simply get away with another outrage and a few hundred thousand more dead Americans?
-Thom
Comments
#2
I agree, people get it with their kids. When he threatens to withhold school money unless they put them at risk it will be impossible to ignore the implications. Mr. T. is sounding more and more like Hitler in the bunker, ordering Germany to go down with him. In 1945 most of his officers ignored that level of madness, and perhaps history will repeat itself here.
#3
“But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word ‘Fascism’ and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty.”
--Sinclain Levis, It Can't Happen Here
#4
, Thom, I heard the former Secretary of Education under Obama, on Rachel Maddox show, say that trump does not have the power or authority to demand that schools reopen across the country. I think most people do not want harm to their children and teachers surely have some say in this. Please stop catastrophizing, if that is a word. I really much prefer your intelligent and reasoned discussions and arguments, leaving out the shouting. Love you, stay well.
#5
Nothing will happen. The governors will do what they want. Schools will open in a limited capacity. (Nothing to do with Trump.) It will be problematic, and Trump will be able to say "I told you so" with impunity.
#6
Hopefully, Thom, you understand that the public school system is controlled by each individual state and it will be up to them to decide when and how to open the public schools. Now, this may be a great opportunity for the charter and private schools if the public school teachers' unions decide to go on strike against heading back to the classrooms.
It should be an interesting test of wills.
#7
A test of wills?! Facepalm.
Notice that Trump is not pressuring charter and private schools to conduct in-person classes (nor any of the now-taxpayer-funded, radical Christianist madrassas), which cater to his rich buddies, who presumably share his fascistic inclinations and who no doubt get tested at every turn with plenty of room for group social-distancing, if not for one-on-one private tutoring. Republicans can bet their white-privileged fat-asses that the well-to-do and the well-connected won't be taking the same insane chances with their lives that are expected of the unwashed masses.
Nope, he's browbeating only public schools and threatening to cut their funding (here and here) if they refuse to participate in his pandemic genocide, in his self-defeating gambit to "re-open" the economy, in his crass bid for re-election -- ever more remote with each passing day that voters witness his absolute unfitness to serve in a position of public trust.
BTW, low-paid teachers don't want to return to the crowded public classrooms because they don't want to die or to infect their families. Duh.
Trump and his mealymouthed spokespeople are either too stupid or too venal to realize that the only way the economy will recover is to get the pandemic under control through a nationwide, "guvmunt-run" program, which means armies of "guvmunt-paid" workers to conduct extensive testing and contact tracing and the surveillance necessary to isolate and quarantine -- you know, like most of the rest of the world has already figured out long ago. Only in "Meeerkkka" are we led by feces-flinging monkeys, who are more concerned with protecting statues honoring traitors than with hundreds of thousands of dead Americans due to Trump's criminal dereliction of duty.
In addition to a national testing program, since Trump the Orange is so fond of his kingly rule by decree, he should issue an executive order that requires face masks nationwide and another one that bans large indoor gatherings (or bunched-up outdoor crowds), such as political rallies -- that is if he was serious about governing a nation during a crisis and he actually cared about the health of the people his duty is to protect.
...If he cared about anyone other than himself.
#8
One person on Thom's show suggested that Trump set an example by having Baron attend the local Public School. Suggest the same for Trumps Grand Children.
#9
Tom, you have your facts wrong about the Arizona teachers. No children were ever in the classroom.
"The educators decided to teach virtually while together in the same classroom, but took what they thought were extensive measures: They wore masks, they disinfected equipment and kept distance between each other."
"Skillings remembers the last time she saw Byrd. At the end of the day teaching, they lingered, in conversation: It was the kind of conversation where they'd say, 'OK now I'm leaving,' and then would continue to talk."
Tragic, but sadly a display of a lack of understanding. Children under 10 rarely, if ever, spreads the virus (research contract-tracing studies). Touching things rarely, if ever, spreads the virus. Spending hours in a room with other adults and air conditioning blowing will spread the virus. Facing an adult taking will spread the virus. Contracting Covid-19 is about virus load, which is a product of time and intensity. If schools are to re-open, adults must be kept apart from one another and distant from children.
https://www.wired.com/story/its-ridiculous-to-treat-schools-like-covid-hot-zones/?
#10
3 Counties in Colorado share the same health Deprtment called Tri County Health Dept. It passed a requirement (not taking affect until July 24th) to require that masks be worn in public places. My Republican controlled County has voted to drop out of Tri County at great expense to the residents due to this requirement. This county has been low in Covid cases but so was TX and FL. Let me give just 1 example of the value in wearing masks: I worked in Taiwan (plus 8 other countries) and witnessed their use of masks during the SARS out break. It is virtually 100%.
Taiwan, population 24 million, 450 total cases, 7 deaths. Have not had a case in months. They wear masks. It is impossible to Social Distance in Capital City Taipei. Florida, population 21 million, 283000 cases, 4300 deaths. Currently cases are doubling every 14 days. They did not wear masks.
#11
What if the Occupant and DeVos are planning to use a teachers union strike to create a national emergency that will lead to destruction of the unions like Reagan did with the air controllers?
#12
It's not right
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Stealing God's children away from their families, caging them like animals in inhumane conditions indefinitely, and then destroying the records of their relatives was not outrageous enough to cause Trump's political enablers to pay a price with their base, who gleefully cheered them on -- USA, USA, USA!
The fiery-eyed hypocrites who loudly proclaim "God and Country" as their raison d'être continually violate the core teachings of not only their nation's basic principals -- Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, -- but also the admonishments of their own Saviour: Luke 17:2 - It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
The wickedness of the impeached Donald John Trump and the subhuman creatures with whom he surrounds himself knows no bounds. A staggering death toll, ravaging destruction, and the godless violation of innocents will be their enduring legacy.