David Michael Miller
The overarching theme of politics in the Donald Trump era is live-and-let-die individualism versus community.
And those of us who care about community are in for a hell of a fight.
Not only did Trump divide and conquer working-class voters with an explicitly racist and misogynist campaign, his cabinet appointments so far are focused on tearing our country apart.
Dismantling health care and education are two top priorities as the Trump administration takes shape.
Phony “free-market” ideology is on the rise. It’s every man for himself.
Get ready for “choice” among high-cost private health insurance bureaucracies, with less regulation and no protection when you get really sick. Despite the campaign hype about “draining the swamp” of Wall Street lobbyists in Washington, get ready for a Wall Street-friendly administration, with a Goldman Sachs alum in charge of the Treasury Department and billionaire “king of bankruptcy” Wilbur Ross as the Commerce secretary.
The potential for self-dealing by a president who appears ready to use his office to enhance his own private business empire is breathtaking. Even Trump’s much-touted infrastructure plan turns out to be a scam involving huge tax cuts for private companies, as opposed to a big push for public investment. And buckle your seatbelt for a national push for the most outrageous rip-off scheme of all — school vouchers.
There has been a lot of talk lately about fractious left-wing “identity politics” and whether being too “politically correct” cost the election for Democrats. It’s true that progressives need to pull together. But an argument about “identity politics” is the last thing we need right now.
Let the right-wing talkers rail against “political correctness” (get ready for “War on Christmas” season).
For progressives, the real challenge is to push back against a vision of society that says kids should only get as much health care, education and opportunity as their parents can afford. Nowhere is the tension between individualism and community more apparent than on the issue of school vouchers.
Vouchers are the special cause of Trump’s pick for secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. They siphon public money into private schools and are the leading edge of the destruction of civil society.
We know a thing or two about DeVos, and about school vouchers, here in Wisconsin.
DeVos heads the group American Federation for Children, which has been a big supporter of Gov. Scott Walker, Republican legislators, and the school voucher expansion in our state.
Back in 2012, Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel got hold of the American Federation for Children’s “Election Impact Report,” which featured charming photos of black and Latino kids, as though these kids were the beneficiaries of the group’s lobbying work. Talk about “identity politics.” There was absolutely no connection between the wellbeing of those smiling kids and the right-wing, budget-slashing politicians American Federation for Children supports, who are busy eliminating funds for public schools and, at the same time, redirecting tax dollars to private-school families.
When former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson started the nation’s first private-school voucher program in Milwaukee in 1990, the plan deliberately pitted African American parents who wanted to get their kids out of crumbling schools against teachers unions, civil libertarians and public-school advocates who objected to sending tax money to private and religious schools.
Nearly three decades later, vouchers have not proven to be a ticket out for poor kids of color. Voucher students in Milwaukee have lower test scores in reading and math than their public-school peers. Tax dollars are going to teach creationism in voucher-funded religious schools.
Fly-by-night voucher schools have popped up in corner stores and rundown strip malls to take advantage of school-voucher money in Wisconsin.
When the state expanded Milwaukee’s voucher program to the city of Racine, half of all new voucher recipients were students who had never attended public school at all.
Forget the school privatizers’ misleading catchphrase, that school choice is “the civil rights issue of our time.” The real question is whether we will continue to have public schools, or a pay-as-you-go system that means you get the education you can afford.
This educational dystopia is the plan DeVos would like to take nationwide. And it is part of a broader vision that is deeply destructive of our common interests.
Trump is a huckster, and his administration is determined to enrich other hucksters at the public’s expense.
It’s time to come together around our progressive vision of a better way of life, for our kids and for our country as a whole.
Ruth Conniff is editor of The Progressive.