COVID-19  was responsible for the deaths of hundreds and hundreds of teachers in 2020, enough alone to make the year an ‘annus horribilis,’ to borrow Queen Elizabeth II’s phrase.  But the world of education also lost Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Lewis, Sir Ken Robinson, Jim Lehrer and Les Crystal of the PBS NewsHour,  the Reverend Darius L. Swann, David K. Cohen, Arnold Packer, and (on the island of Martha’s Vineyard) Nelson Bryant, Lee Fierro, and Dr. Susan Whiting Shanock.

Although they weren’t educators per se, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and U.S. Representative John Lewis contributed mightily to the cause of public education: Justice Ginsburg by the cases she brought as an attorney and the cases she decided while on the Supreme Court, and Mr. Lewis by his work as a student leader and his leadership in the struggle for civil rights as a protestor and as a member of Congress.  Barriers against women, in education and in the workplace, fell because of RBG. John Lewis nearly lost his life on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, but it was that savage beating that led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I probably should have placed my tribute to Sir Ken Robinson at the end of this post, because I am going to ask that those who haven’t seen his TED talk, the most widely viewed in TED’s history, to please do so.  Viewed by an estimated 380,000,000 people, the short talk is profound. Its message, which is as relevant today as when he spoke, demonstrates how much the world lost when Sir Ken died in August at age 70 after a short battle with cancer.  Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for his service to the arts, Sir Ken was “named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN’s ‘Principal Voices’; acclaimed by Fast Company magazine as one of ‘the world’s elite thinkers on creativity and innovation’ and ranked in the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top business thinkers,” quoting from an obituary. 

Technically, PBS NewsHour co-founder Jim Lehrer and long-time Executive Producer Les Crystal were not teachers.  However, Jim and Les (with Robin MacNeil and Deputy Executive Producer Linda Winslow) built what began as The MacNeil/Lehrer Report in 1975 into the nation’s most trusted source of news.  While Jim and Les taught me a great deal, more importantly their PBS program educated millions of Americans five nights a week for many, many years….and continues to do so today.

A quick story about the kind of man Jim was: Sometime in 2006 while wandering around Bangkok, I came across a peddler selling tiny vehicles fashioned out of soda cans. At first I saw only replicas of taxi-like vehicles, but under the pile I spotted a bus. I immediately thought of Jim, whose bus collection was legendary.  His office was full of bus memorabilia, some no doubt from the work sites of his father, a bus dispatcher in Oklahoma and elsewhere. What’s more, the basement of the Lehrer home in DC was a carefully arranged display of bus memorabilia that Jim enjoyed showing to visitors.  Even though I spent lots of time in Jim’s office and had toured his basement, I nevertheless bought the tacky, tinny, tiny bus home and later presented it to Jim.  He could not have been more gracious; his words and his smile implied that this piece was the one item he had been searching for, in vain, the world over, and for years!  Odds are, of course, that Jim had been given this particular thing more than a few times….and had been as gracious to the other gift-givers as he was to me. (If you’re not familiar with Billy Collins’ poem, The Lanyard, please click this link.)

The Reverend Darius L. Swann, who died at 96, also contributed to the struggle for equality in education. Although I never interviewed him, I knew his name because his 1964 lawsuit led directly to the 1971 Supreme Court decision known as Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg that upheld busing as a legal means of desegregation.  

The Associated Press reported it this way:  “On Sept. 2, 1964, Swann wrote a letter to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, asking that his son James be allowed to attend Seversville School, two blocks from his home, rather than the all-black Biddleville School, which was more than twice as far away. He was allowed to argue his case at a subsequent meeting of the school board, which suggested that the Swanns enroll James in Biddleville, then request a transfer.

The Swanns said no thanks. “We figured that the system was really protecting segregation,” Swann told The Associated Press in an interview in 2000. “What they wanted to do was decide things on a case-by-case basis, when what they needed to do was change the whole system; there was a systemic problem.”

Enlisting the support of local activist Reginald Hawkins and civil rights attorney Julius Chambers, Swann sued the school system in January 1965. While they pursued their legal fight, the Swanns enrolled James and his younger sister, Edith, in a private Lutheran school. After one year there, the Swanns moved their children to Eastover, a public school in the affluent, predominantly white Myers Park neighborhood.

Chambers continued the lawsuit even after the Swanns moved to New York, where Swann and his wife worked at Columbia University, and later to Hawaii before moving to India, where he researched Asian theater.    …

In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld court-ordered busing in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, clearing the way for the use of busing as a means of desegregation. Swann learned of the decision while he was in a mountain village in India and read about it in an English-language newspaper.”

Finally, David K. Cohen and Arnold Packer, two men who contributed mightily to the education of others–and who also shaped my own professional life as much as anyone.   If you are at all wonkish about education, you are familiar with “The Shopping Mall High School,” which David, Arthur K. Powell, and Eleanor Farrar wrote in 1999.   Subtitled “Winners and Losers in the Educational MarketPlace,” the book was reviewed by Albert Shanker, a giant in the world of education.  He called it “A sobering analysis of current conditions in our secondary schools and how they got that way.”

A gifted writer, David was an even better teacher.  (Irony of ironies, David was also my wife’s favorite teacher when she attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education eleven years later.)  David was my doctoral thesis advisor, and a friend for many years thereafter.  He inspired thousands of other students to dig deeper and to ask questions. Moreover, he convinced self-doubting students–like me–that they could swim in a bigger pond, in deeper water.  

Dr. Arnold Packer, known everywhere as Arnie, was an economist, not an educator, and that was part of his appeal.  Plain-spoken and direct, Arnie had little patience for the love of jargon that seems to afflict the majority of educators.  “What does that mean, actually?” he would ask when some cloud of verbiage was filling a room.  He had serious credentials in the world of education because he was the principal architect of what were known as the SCANS skills.

If I may, another quick trip down memory lane: Sometime around 2002, Arnie and I created an interactive curriculum to teach math and writing to HS students. This unlikely partnership between an economist and a reporter came about because he and I sat together at an education conference, an experience that activated the BS detector mentioned above, big time. When the meeting ended, we went to a bar, and–after two or three beers–decided that we could do a much better job than the educators.

And we actually created a plan, first scribbled on napkins at the bar, then in prose, and then in a proposal to the US Department of Education, which was funding innovation in curriculum using technology.  We partnered with Baltimore City Schools and–wonder of wonders–got a multi-million dollar grant (most of it went to the school system).   

The high school English and Math curriculum we created was interactive and computer-based. Working in teams, students had to become merchants who were selling something in a mall. Big decisions about rent, store frontage, what to sell, staffing, loans, etc. That meant lots of math. They also had to write and present their business plan—to real business men and women–meaning writing and public speaking. 

Some English and math teachers teamed, and others did not, meaning we had a natural experiment. It worked, producing statistically significant differences in both subjects, plus improved attendance.  Arnie and I were over the moon, until the system killed it because it was logistically difficult to arrange schedules, or some crap like that. 

The trio—Arnie, John, and beer—cannot share credit equally, because Arnie was the driving force.  Later we worked together to create what Arnie called the “Verified Resumé,” an electronic portfolio that could be updated to reflect newly acquired skills, much more than college credits.  Again Arnie was the driving force, and I was his eager wingman.

Finally, here on Martha’s Vineyard, where I’ve been living since March, we lost Nelson Bryant, the venerable New York Times columnist who educated millions of readers about the intricate charms and essential value of the outdoors and Lee Fierro, a high school drama teacher who found fame as the actor who slapped Roy Scheider in “Jaws.”  Bryant, who parachuted into occupied France during World War II, was 96.  Fierro, who was 91, died of coronavirus complications, And finally, Dr. Susan Whiting Shanok, who although she was an international mediator who taught nations how to get along, is best remembered on the island for an incident that occurred many summers ago.  A teenager, Susan was working as a waitress, and one day she spilled an entire bowl of hot soup on the ‘Tough Guy’ actor and summer resident Jimmy Cagney.  Her immediate response: “Don’t worry, Mr. Cagney, I’ll get you another bowl of soup.”

Thanks to all of you, and may you rest in peace……

Because I’ve reached the age and stage where memories blend, fade away, or are exaggerated beyond recognition, I cannot recall whether the insight, “If my students aren’t learning, then I am not teaching,” was uttered by a veteran colleague from my 4-year teaching stint, whether it came from one of the thousands of teachers I interviewed over 41 years of reporting, or whether I read it somewhere.  I know I didn’t come up with it.  But it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is that, even though many other factors–such as health, nutrition, inadequate shelter, and abuse–can and do interfere with learning, good teachers always take it personally when their students aren’t succeeding.

That’s why it’s truly depressing to read that, in some school districts, about half of the students are receiving failing grades.  The reliable Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post is on the story.   

Here are a few site-specific stories you might want to peruse:  Maryland. Iowa City, Iowa.  Tucson, Arizona.  Houston, Texas.  Northern California. 

When the pandemic struck this spring, most school districts shifted to on-line schooling, and grading became ‘pass/fail.’  That approach to grading has been abandoned, even though on-line learning is ubiquitous, because, as Ed Week’s Stephen Sawchuck noted,  

“…as the crisis continued and school began in the fall, most districts reverted to their old grading systems, in part because of the infrastructure that depends on those grades: Senior transcripts need to be prepared for college admissions. Grades determine access to specialized middle school programs, magnet schools, and sports scholarships.”

Stop and think about what this means.  First of all, giving out failing grades essentially puts the blame squarely on the students, who must live with the consequences of an unimpressive transcript. Some critics of public education also want to blame teachers for those failing grades, but the venerable truth I began this essay with no longer holds true.  

What’s true in this age of pandemic schooling is this: “When most students are not learning, then the system itself is broken and must be examined from the ground up.”  

Apparently school boards and some educators have been working overtime to ‘get back to normal.’  That’s a huge mistake, because ‘normal’ wasn’t all that great for most students.

I wrote about this at some length in “Addicted to Reform: A 12-Step Program to Rescue Public Education” and won’t attempt to reprise everything here.  But this point is worth emphasizing: schools should be using assessments to help improve both learning and teaching.  In shorthand, “Assess to Improve. Don’t Test to Punish!” 

High-stakes testing should be a thing of the past for this school year.  Beyond that, we should debate the costs and benefits before embracing the policies of the Bush and Obama Administrations.  Outgoing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has suspended the annual National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, which tests only a small sample of students in a few grades.  At the same time, she and others seem to be supporting end-of-year tests for all students.  This is, to be blunt, just plain stupid!  Keep the NAEP testing, and drop the high-stakes end-of-year tests.

Maybe this school year should be thought of as a game of golf among friends.  If you hit a good shot, great. If your shot goes awry for whatever reason, take a mulligan.  Some students will ask for letter grades, and that’s fine.  Others should have the opportunity to take different paths without fear of punishment.

My essay about this earlier this year included these words: 

With school buildings shuttered, students do not have to ‘attend’ anything.  They can log on to classes to get credit for ‘being there,’ but there’s no way for the teachers to know who’s paying attention and who’s FaceTiming friends.  More than 25% of students in Los Angeles, for example, aren’t even bothering to log on, and even parents who are monitoring their children’s efforts cannot be certain that they’re paying attention.  

So the parents and teachers might consider asking questions, instead of simply giving assignments: 

          What would make this material appealing to you? 

          What would persuade you to invest your energies in this subject? 

          What else are you interested in?  

For example, perhaps focusing on one subject at a time might be more appealing than trying to study five subjects every day.  The block schedule of 50-minute periods may work inside school buildings, but that doesn’t mean it can transfer to the home.  What if we compressed the semester of American history or American Literature into the month of May? Would a series of deep dives be more engaging?  For openers, try asking the students.

However, students shouldn’t get to make all the decisions about what they’re studying.  After all, a central purpose of the early years of school is the transmission of knowledge, and so the basics are also part of the deal.  Children need to learn spelling rules (“I before E, except after C”), the multiplication tables, how to divide and carry, and other basics. They need to know that letters have sounds associated with them (i.e., Phonics and Phonemic Awareness).  Someone has to teach them that, if you put an E at the end of words like ‘ton,’ the O sound changes from ‘short’ to ‘long.’ While that may seem like heavy lifting for parents who haven’t trained to teach, they can relax.  Free resources like the Khan Academy, ReadWorks, and Zearn are available to help children and parents with basic skills. Resources are plentiful: PBS is making all of Ken Burns’ documentaries available for screening, and former first lady Michelle Obama is on line, reading stories to young children, to cite just two examples.

Young people must be deeply involved in setting the learning goals and in figuring out how results will be measured.  It makes no sense to wait for bubble test results.  Teachers, parents, and students should assess progress frequently, take a clear-headed look at the results, and adapt accordingly. That also means that leadership must abandon the all-too-prevalent “Gotcha” attitude toward teachers. The new thinking has to be “Assess to improve,” and not “Test to punish.”

Plan teaching with that in mind. Don’t take it personally when the student/your child doesn’t get it the first time, or the fifth. Explore the reasoning behind the error, but not punitively. Celebrate wherever possible.  Parents can teach their children valuable skills through family activities like cooking, playing board games, and planting a spring garden.  Above all, parents should recognize that they are learners too, because that makes it perfectly OK to say, “I don’t know, so let’s find out together.”   And leave plenty of time for play……

“Plenty of time for play” cannot be stressed enough. Unfortunately, it’s not part of an otherwise admirable report from the Learning Policy Institute about the importance of reimagining and redesigning public education during and after Covid.

Erika Christakis covers this territory in an engaging and provocative essay in The Atlantic.  “School Wasn’t So Great Before COVID, Either” is her catchy title.  Please take the time to consider her arguments.

COVID-19 vaccines will be given to health care workers and other front-line workers in the very near future.  In most states, it’s all but certain that teachers will be among the first to get vaccinated, meaning that most schools will reopen.  But, please please please, do not try to ‘get back to normal.’ 

My suggestions: 

    1. Make the institution more (small d) democratic. 

2. Give students more agency over their own learning. 

3. Give kids time and space to get accustomed to being with peers, even socially distanced, for the first time in many months.  

4. Social and emotional learning may matter more than book-learning for these first weeks and months, because we don’t know the effects of isolation. 

5. Lots of free play. 

6. And maybe this is (finally) the time to move away from age segregation and group children instead according to the interests and their level of accomplishment.  

7. Finally, NO hand-wringing about ‘remediation’ or ‘learning loss,’ because that’s blaming the victim, big time.

What do you think we should do for all our children?

I know that I interviewed hundreds of future Trump supporters during my 41 years of reporting on public education for PBS and NPR. I’m also pretty sure that I taught some of them in high school 55 years ago.  Joey L. is a case in point.  Joey was a junior back in 1966 when he was in my English class, so he would be about 70 years old today.  Back then most public schools (including his, Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, NY) tracked students into groups.  Joey had been placed in the third level in its 1-5 system of tracking, and Level 3 was certainly not a winner’s track.

I was a rookie teacher, assigned to teach only 3’s and 4’s, and Joey was in my class. I knew nothing about tracking–and therefore nothing about how the Administration viewed my students. I didn’t see them as ‘losers’ or even as ‘others.’ They were my students, and I wanted and expected them to work hard, think, and write and rewrite.

“MacBeth” was part of the curriculum, and because I suspected that Shakespeare might be tough sledding, I got the Caedmon recording of the tragedy and played it in class. My students (including Joey) understood it and began arguing in class about MacBeth’s and Lady MacBeth’s guilt. Out of that came the notion of putting the two of them on trial for first degree murder.

Which we did.

Some students were lawyers, others were the defendants or witnesses for the defense and prosecution. In order to testify, they had to know the play backwards and forwards, of course. We had a jury of students and persuaded the Principal to be the presiding judge. I also required everyone to write up each day’s proceedings as if they were reporters. It was a whirlwind couple of weeks.

But what I remember most clearly was a letter from Joey’s mother that arrived a week or two later. Written on lined paper in simple language and penmanship that reminded me of a child’s, the letter thanked me for keeping Joey in school. Joey’s Mom said that her son had gotten so frustrated with being talked down to and looked down on that he had given up on school. She wrote that she had to fight with him every day just to get him out of bed in the morning, but that now he couldn’t wait to get to school.

I had no idea what she was talking about, because Joey wasn’t indifferent or detached in my English class. He was an eager student, fun to teach. Why was she thanking me?

Of course, I cherished the letter because it made me feel great. Only much much later did I begin to think about the system that Joey and I were part of: Here was a bright kid from a working class family who had been relegated to Level 3. He was being forced into the drudgery of a high school curriculum in which he had no interest and which promised him nothing in the way of a promising future.  A teacher came along who expected more and who respected his intelligence, and Joey responded.

Actually, almost all kids respond to how adults treat them. They live up or down to their teachers’ expectations, which is why sorting young children is a bad idea.

However, this process of sorting is by design.  Some students are placed in a course of study leading to elite colleges, prominence, and financial success.  These kids get the most experienced teachers, varied and challenging curricula, and interesting field trips.

Today overt tracking is morally repugnant and even illegal, but still schools manage to group students, treating some as ‘winners,’ the rest as, well, ‘not winners.’   While test scores–themselves subject to class bias–are taken into account, grouping seems to be based not on innate ability but on parental education, family income, race, and class. By third or fourth grade most kids know, deep down, whether the system sees them as ‘winners’ bound for college or ‘losers’ headed somewhere else.  

And while young people like Joey aren’t labeled ‘losers’ per se, they are told that college is the only path to adult success but are largely left to struggle on their own. That experience leaves many angry, frustrated and resentful, not to mention largely unprepared for life in a complex, rapidly changing society.   Why would they become active participants in a political process that is directed and dominated by the now grown up ‘winners’ from their school days? 

Most of them stayed away–non-voters–until one day a candidate who seemed to understand their resentment came along.

Because I left Schreiber High School after two years, I don’t know what happened to Joey. However, because the system rarely bumped students out of their designated track, it’s likely that Joey stayed in Track 3, along with the rest of ‘the others.’  While I hope the young man caught a break, it’s easy to imagine him growing frustrated, putting in the seat time necessary to get his diploma. Hanging out with his buddies, getting into trouble from time to time. Maybe community college, maybe the armed services, and maybe pulling the lever for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Recent ‘education reforms’ actually made matters worse for kids like Joey. Test-based accountability punished schools if most of their students failed to achieve a minimum test score. George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” led to a narrow curriculum without art, music, and even science; lots of time spent practicing how to take tests; no more recess; and what I call ‘regurgitation education’–especially for the 75-80% of students who hadn’t been sorted into the top tier. ‘Regurgitation education’ rewards parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education, and citizenship. 

This fundamentally anti-intellectual approach also failed to produce results.  Scores on our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have largely remained flat and in some instances have gone down. What’s more, students aren’t even retaining what we are demanding they regurgitate.  For example, a survey in 2016 revealed that one-third of Americans cannot name any of the three branches of our government, and half do not know the number of US Senators.

(Apparently our elected officials aren’t much better:  Senator-elect Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a public school graduate and a Republican, recently incorrectly identified the three branches of our government as the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.)

Reducing kids to test scores has produced generations of graduates whose teachers and curriculum did not help them develop the habit of asking questions, digging deep, or discovering and following their passion. Because of how they were treated in school, many Americans have not grown into curious, socially conscious adults.

While Donald Trump embraced those he called ‘the poorly educated,’ that’s the incorrect term. These men and women are not ‘poorly educated,’ ‘undereducated,’ or ‘uneducated.’ They have been miseducated, an important distinction. For the most part, their schools have treated them as objects, as empty vessels to pour information into so it can be regurgitated back on tests.

The sorting process also produces elitists who feel superior to the largely invisible ‘losers’ from their school days.  Arguably, those chickens came home to roost in the 2016 Presidential election.  Candidate Clinton calling Trump supporters ‘A Bucket of Deplorables‘ probably cost her the Presidency in 2016.  But in all likelihood she was speaking her personal truth, because, after all, her public school had identified her as a ‘winner,‘ one of the elite. It’s perfectly understandable that she had trouble identifying with people who had been energized by Donald Trump.

Sorting is inevitable, because students try out for teams and plays, apply to colleges, and eventually seek employment, but let’s postpone sorting for as long as possible. A new approach to schooling must ask a different question about each young child. Let’s stop asking, “How intelligent are you?”  Let’s ask instead, “How are you intelligent?”   Every child has interests, and those can be tapped and nurtured in schools designed to provide opportunities for children to succeed as they pursue paths of their own choosing. Giving children agency over their education—with appropriate guidance and supervision—will produce graduates better equipped to cope with today’s changing world, and a larger supply of informed voters.

Reimagining public education is a long-term challenge.  The new Biden administration must also chart a course that will win over a significant number of voters who pulled the lever for Donald J. Trump in 2016 and 2020.

To change the minds of some of the 73 million adults who voted for Trump, the Biden Administration has to persuade them that their government works for them. Because actions speak louder than words, a call for ‘healing’ won’t cut it. Instead, we need drastic action, a modern-day GI Bill that includes action on at least these four fronts:

1) A National Service program that employs people to help distribute COVID vaccines and perform contact tracing, in addition to rebuilding parks and national forests and working in difficult jobs in remote places. These jobs must pay a living wage and provide for college/vocational training thereafter. Too many of these activities have been relying on volunteer workers, who have all but disappeared because of the pandemic, as the New York Times reported recently. (The full report is here.)

2) A serious federal program to rebuild our aging infrastructure of roads and bridges and build out broadband across the nation. This would create millions of well-paying jobs. One plan can be found here.

3) Grants to states to support free or low-cost vocational training in community colleges and vocational schools for those seeking career change or promotion. This is vital because the Democratic Party is becoming (or has become) the Party of the college-educated, which is not a compliment.  

Even those who can drive a nail and rewire a lamp with some degree of confidence ought to be in awe of the highly competent mechanics who repair, install, and calibrate HVAC systems, which requires skilled carpentry, electrical wiring, and placement, installation, and soldering of ducts and plumbing.  Or the well-trained people who keep your car in tune. These men and women have something to show for their work at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, too many Democrats behave as if workers aren’t worthy. The words of the great John W. Gardner ought to be prominently displayed in every political office, and taken to heart by every political leader:

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.“

4) A concerted effort to relieve student loan debt that is crippling so many young adults. The Biden Administration can act on its own in small ways (and candidate Biden pledged to forgive $10,000 of federal debt per student), but Congressional action is needed for anything major. Certainly those who successfully perform National Service for an agreed-upon time should have some portion of their student loan debt forgiven.

John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,” but this is not a Kennedy-like appeal to idealism. Nor is it a disguised form of charity, “make-work” programs for those who can’t find jobs. Rather, this is purely transactional: The United States needs you, and you need the United States.

Call it “US Needs US.” Done right, this will be a better deal for everyone…..And, since Joe Biden’s favorite expression is ‘Here’s the deal,” maybe he will decide to call it “A Better Deal!“

To end where I began, we must begin now to fundamentally change our schools so they don’t keep on producing adults who are disconnected, disaffected, resentful, xenophobic, and sometimes scared of the future. Many are an easy mark for a candidate who promises easy solutions and a return to what they like to believe was a far better world. IE, Trump voters in 2016 and 2020.

While a clear majority of voters preferred Joe Biden over Trump, we aren’t out of the woods. The COVID crisis is also an opportunity to reimagine public education. Let’s not spend valuable energy trying to “get back to normal” in education, because, unless we create schools that respect and nurture our children, we run the risk of once again electing a quasi-fascist demagogue. That, I fear, would be the end of the American experiment.

Three Big Questions: 1) How many of the nearly 73 million Americans who voted for President Donald J. Trump can be persuaded to support President Joe Biden? 2) How can Democrats connect with them? 3) Can we (not just Democrats) fix our schools so they don’t keep turning out angry and disaffected graduates who eagerly support demagogues?

I suspect that the hard core racists, the white nationalists, the anti-semites, the misogynists, Islamaphobes, and other close-minded bigots who voted for Trump aren’t persuadable, nor are greedy, selfish voters who care only about their finances.

But, as I see it, that leaves many millions of Trump voters who might be open to change. Let’s not scorn or mock them but rather try to understand their position.

To change the minds of adults who voted for Trump, we have to persuade them that their government works for them. Because actions speak louder than words, a call for ‘healing’ won’t cut it. Instead, we need drastic action, a modern-day GI Bill that includes action on at least these four fronts:

1) A National Service program that employs people to help distribute COVID vaccines and perform contact tracing, in addition to rebuilding parks and national forests and working in difficult jobs in remote places. These jobs must pay a living wage and provide for college/vocational training thereafter. Too many of these activities have been relying on volunteer workers, who have all but disappeared because of the pandemic, as the New York Times reported recently. (The full report is here.)

2) A serious federal program to rebuild our aging infrastructure of roads and bridges and build out broadband across the nation. This would create millions of well-paying jobs. One plan can be found here.

3) Grants to states to support free or low-cost vocational training in community colleges and vocational schools for those seeking career change or promotion. This is vital because the Democratic Party is becoming (or has become) the Party of the college-educated, which is not a compliment. Too many Democrats behave as if workers aren’t worthy. The words of the great John W. Gardner ought to be prominently displayed in every political office, and taken to heart by every political leader:

“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.“

4) A concerted effort to relieve student loan debt that is crippling so many young adults. The Biden Administration can act on its own in small ways (and candidate Biden pledged to forgive $10,000 of federal debt per student), but Congressional action is needed for anything major. Certainly those who successfully perform National Service for an agreed-upon time should have some portion of their student loan debt forgiven.

John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,” but this is not a Kennedy-like appeal to idealism. Nor is it a disguised form of charity, “make-work” programs for those who can’t find jobs. Rather, this is purely transactional: The United States needs you, and you need the United States.

Call it “US Needs US.” Done right, this will be a better deal for everyone…..And, since Joe Biden’s favorite expression is ‘Here’s the deal,” maybe he will decide to call it “A Better Deal!“

At the same time we must fundamentally change our schools so they don’t keep on producing adults who will follow candidates like Donald Trump!

I taught some Trump voters in a New York public high school in the mid-1960’s. Since then I’ve been with them in thousands of classrooms during my 41 years as a reporter. I’ve seen up close how our public school system sorts students into ‘winners’ and ‘others’ by design. This creates adults who are disconnected, disaffected, resentful, xenophobic, and sometimes scared of the future. Many are an easy mark for a candidate who promises easy solutions and a return to what they like to believe was a far better world. IE, Trump voters in 2016 and 2020.

Joey Levy was either a sophomore or a junior back in 1965 or 1966 when I was his English teacher, so he would be about 70 years old today. His high school in Port Washington, New York, had placed him in the third level in its 1-5 system of tracking, and Level 3 was certainly not a winner’s track.

I was a rookie teacher, assigned to teach only 3’s and 4’s, and Joey was in my class. I knew nothing about tracking–and therefore nothing about how the Administration viewed my students. I didn’t see them as ‘losers’ or even as ‘others.’ They were my students, and I wanted and expected them to work hard, think, and write and rewrite.

“MacBeth” was part of the curriculum, and because I suspected that Shakespeare might be tough sledding, I got the Caedmon recording of the tragedy and played it in class. My students (including Joey) understood it and began arguing in class about MacBeth’s and Lady MacBeth’s guilt. Out of that came the notion of putting the two of them on trial for first degree murder.

Which we did.

Some students were lawyers, others were the defendants or witnesses for the defense and prosecution. They had to know the play backwards and forwards, of course. We had a jury of students and persuaded the Principal to be the presiding judge. I think I required everyone to write up each day’s proceedings as if they were reporters. It was a whirlwind week.

But what I remember most clearly was a letter from Joey’s mother that arrived a week or two later. Written on lined paper in simple language and penmanship that reminded me of a child’s, the letter thanked me for keeping Joey in school. Joey’s Mom said that her son had gotten so frustrated with being talked down to and looked down on that he had given up on school. She wrote that she had to fight with him every day just to get him out of bed in the morning, but that now he couldn’t wait to get to school.

I had no idea what she was talking about, because Joey wasn’t indifferent or detached in my English class. He was an eager student, fun to teach. Why was she thanking me?

Of course, I cherished the letter because it made me feel great. Only much much later did I begin think about the system that Joey and I were part of: Here was a bright kid from a working class family who had been relegated to Level 3. A teacher came along who expected more and who respected his intelligence, and Joey responded.

Most kids respond. They live up or down to their teachers’ expectations, which is why sorting young children is a bad idea.

Make no mistake: This process of sorting is by design. Most public schools sort young children in two basic groups:  The minority, designated as ‘winners,’ are placed on a track leading to elite colleges, prominence, and financial success.  These kids get the most experienced teachers, varied and challenging curricula, and interesting field trips.

Although formal tracking has fallen out of favor, nearly all schools still have subtle ways of designating winners and losers, often based as much on parental education and income, race, and class as innate ability. By third or fourth grade most kids know, deep down, whether the system sees them as ‘winners’ bound for college or ‘losers’ headed somewhere else.  

And while these young people aren’t labeled ‘losers’ per se, they are largely left to struggle on their own. That experience leaves many angry, frustrated and resentful, not to mention largely unprepared for life in a complex, rapidly changing society.   Why would they become active participants in a political process that is directed and dominated by the now grown up ‘winners’ from their school days? 

Most of them stayed away–non-voters–until one day a candidate who seemed to understand their resentment came along.

I left Schreiber High School after two years, and I don’t know what happened to Joey Levy. Because the system rarely bumped students out of their designated track, it’s likely that Joey stayed in Track 3, along with the rest of ‘the others.’ I hope the young man caught a break, but it’s easy to imagine him growing frustrated, putting in the seat time necessary to get his diploma. Hanging out with his buddies, getting into trouble from time to time. Maybe community college, maybe the armed services, and maybe pulling the lever for Trump in 2016 and 2020.

Recent ‘education reforms’ have actually made matters worse for kids like Joey. Test-based accountability punished schools if most of their students failed to achieve a minimum test score. George Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” and Barack Obama’s “Race to the Top” led to a narrow curriculum without art, music, and even science; lots of time spent practicing how to take tests; no more recess; and what I call ‘regurgitation education’–especially for the 75-80% of students who hadn’t been sorted into the top tier. ‘Regurgitation education’ rewards parroting back answers, while devaluing intellectual curiosity, cooperative learning, projects, field trips, the arts, physical education, and citizenship. 

This fundamentally anti-intellectual approach also failed to produce results.  Scores on our National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have largely remained flat and in some instances have gone down. What’s more, students aren’t even retaining what we are demanding they regurgitate.  For example, a survey in 2016 revealed that one-third of Americans cannot name any of the three branches of our government, and half do not know the number of US Senators.

(Apparently our elected officials aren’t much better: newly-elected Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a public school graduate and a Republican, recently incorrectly identified the three branches of our government as the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.)

Reducing kids to test scores has produced generations of graduates whose teachers and curriculum did not help them develop the habit of asking questions, digging deep, or discovering and following their passion. Because of how they were treated in school, many Americans have not grown into curious, socially conscious adults.

While Donald Trump embraced those he called ‘the poorly educated,’ that’s the incorrect term. These men and women are not ‘poorly educated,’ ‘undereducated,’ or ‘uneducated.’ They have been miseducated, an important distinction. For the most part, their schools have treated them as objects, as empty vessels to pour information into so it can be regurgitated back on tests.

The sorting process also produces elitists who feel superior to the largely invisible ‘losers’ from their school days.  Arguably, those chickens came home to roost in the 2016 Presidential election.  Candidate Clinton’s calling Trump supporters ‘A Bucket of Deplorables‘ probably cost her the Presidency in 2016.  But in all likelihood she was speaking her personal truth, because, after all, her public school had identified her as a ‘winner,‘ one of the elite. It’s perfectly understandable that she had trouble identifying with people who had been energized by Donald Trump.

Sorting is inevitable, because students try out for teams and plays, apply to colleges, and eventually seek employment, but let’s postpone sorting for as long as possible. A new approach to schooling must ask a different question about each young child. Let’s stop asking, “How intelligent are you?”  Let’s ask instead, “How are you intelligent?”   Every child has interests, and those can be tapped and nurtured in schools designed to provide opportunities for children to succeed as they pursue paths of their own choosing. Giving children agency over their education—with appropriate guidance and supervision—will produce graduates better equipped to cope with today’s changing world.  And a larger supply of informed voters!

While a clear majority of voters preferred Joe Biden over Trump, we aren’t out of the woods. The COVID crisis is also an opportunity to reimagine public education. Let’s not spend valuable energy trying to “get back to normal” in education, because, unless we create schools that respect and nurture our children, we run the risk of once again electing a quasi-fascist demagogue. That, I fear, would be the end of the American experiment.

I imagine that almost everyone has at least a passing acquaintance with the Seven Deadly Sins, even if their names don’t roll easily off your tongue. For the record and to jog your memory, the Seven Deadly Sins are pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.

If you’re like me, you have known most (maybe all) of them intimately, although hopefully only occasionally.

But my point is not to confess my own transgressions or to list how the current occupant of the White House seems to embody all Seven Sins.

Instead, I hope to convince you that, in this Elections Season, an 8th Deadly Sin is the greatest and most offensive of all. Let’s call this sin ‘Indifference,’ although it is often expressed in other terms, like ‘I’m So Tired of Politics,’ ‘Pandemic Fatigue,’ ‘I’m Sitting Out The Election,’ or even the absurd ‘Trump and Biden are Two Peas in a Pod so I say “A Plague on Both Their Houses.“‘

Indifference is a Cardinal Sin because this November the future of America is at stake. And, make no mistake, we have a clear choice:

between nascent fascism and our representative democracy;

between a narcissist who cares not a whit about anyone but himself and an honest politician whose loyalty to America is unquestioned;

between an ignorant egomaniac who knew but chose not to tell us that the Corona virus was both airborne and lethal and a leader who trusts that Americans can handle any crisis;

between a science-denier who rules by whim, passion, and his need for retribution and an educated man who learns from others and trusts science;

between a man who chose an ignorant ideologue to be Secretary of Education and a man who is happily married to a distinguished teacher;

between a man who has called our military ‘suckers’ and ‘losers’ and a man whose son Beau was a decorated veteran;

between a white supremacist and a decent, open-minded leader who will work for all of us, regardless of race, color, creed, age, or sexual orientation;

between greed/kleptocracy and socially-minded capitalism; and

between the end of America as we have known it and a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.

While this Bill of Particulars could easily exceed the 95 theses that Martin Luther nailed to a church door in Wittenberg in October, 1517, I hope the point is clear: Doing nothing is not an option, not this year.

Please donate to Act Blue or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Or pick the Senate and House candidates you want to support and donate to them directly. Or make phone calls to registered but inactive Democrats in swing states like Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas and more.

But please, please, please do not commit the 8th Deadly Sin of Indifference.

In Steven Spielberg’s iconic 1975 horror film Jaws, a high school drama teacher named Lee Fierro plays the mother whose son was killed by the shark. In a memorable scene, she walks up to the local police chief and slaps him after learning he knew that a girl was killed after a shark attack. “You knew it was dangerous, but you let people go swimming anyway,” she told him while crying. “You knew all those things and still my boy is dead now, and there’s nothing you can do about it. My boy is dead. I wanted you to know that.”

It’s a powerful, even unforgettable scene, payback for the failure of leadership that led directly to death.

I now live in the town that represents Amity in Jaws (Edgartown, on Martha’s Vineyard, where Lee Fierro taught drama to high school students. Reminders of the film are everywhere: The Chappy Ferry, the “Amity Hardware” sign in the local hardware store are just two examples.

When I’m lucky, I also hear stories about the production that took place 46 years ago. Here’s one particularly relevant anecdote: That memorable slapping scene required 19 takes. That’s right, she slapped Amity Police Chief Brody, played by Roy Scheider, NINETEEN times before Director Steven Spielberg was satisfied.

But that was just one fictionalized death, and one slap across the face. How many people who have lost family to Covid-19 would line up to slap the face of Donald Trump, who knew in January that the virus was airborne and far more dangerous than the flu? How many of us would like to say, to his face, “You knew all those things and still my (parent, spouse, child) is dead now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Make no mistake about it: Trump knowingly lied to us, time and again. Here’s one example from Los Angeles. The Washington Post compiled this helpful list of 34 different occasions. He never told the truth, and 207,000 Americans died.

And Trump wasn’t the only one who knew but failed to speak out. His national security team told him. Should they have resigned when he lied to the American people? They didn’t, and Americans died.

Bob Woodward knew that Trump knew because Trump admitted as much in a series of interviews, but he said nothing until the book was ready to be sold. If he had spoken out–released the transcripts–in May or June or July, that might have saved 100,000 American lives

When Lee Fierro died in April at age 91, Los Angeles Times Columnist Mary McNamara wrote the following powerful words:

Fierro’s turn as Mrs. Kintner remains one of the most powerful scenes in “Jaws.” She is there to remind the audience that each person who is lost leaves grief and desolation in his or her wake. And, more important, that this loss, grief and desolation must be laid at the feet of those officials who chose to ignore the facts, the experts and the obvious. Those mayors and safety inspectors and presidents who, because it was easier for them, chose to simply hope for the best.

We are all Mrs. Kintner now. …..

You knew, Mr. President. You knew there was a shark out there, you knew it was dangerous, you knew we were not prepared — and now our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, friends and neighbors are dead.

Let’s go back to that scene and the 19 takes. Suppose, just suppose, that 207,000 grieving survivors got to slap Donald Trump in the face. And suppose it took each of them NINETEEN takes to get their slap right.

That’s close to FOUR MILLION slaps across the face on Donald J. Trump!

While it may make your day to imagine a massive ‘SLAP-ATHON,’ it’s not going to happen. Instead, you can figuratively slap Trump on November 3rd. Vote him out, along with all his enablers who hold elective office, people like Senators McConnell, Graham, Collins, McSally, Tillis, and Ernst. Urge others to register and vote, particularly if they live in swing states. Donate to candidates up and down the ballot.

Do everything you possibly can to hold Trump accountable–and to reclaim our country.

By now everyone must know that President Trump has been lying about the coronavirus for months, telling us it would magically disappear when he knew all along that it was a killer threat. Trump admitted this in phone conversations with Bob Woodward recorded in February and March, but only now–in September–have some of the tapes been released.

That Trump is unfit to serve as our President has been clear for an awfully long time. That most Republicans don’t care what he does is also painfully clear.

So let’s ask another question: Should Bob Woodward have released those tapes months ago. If he had done so, would that possibly have saved thousands and thousands of lives?

At some time or other, every journalist is presented with this classic hypothetical situation: Suppose you are filming or photographing a raging river and you see a young child being swept downstream. The child is clinging to a piece of wood and is clearly in danger of drowning. Should you keep on filming, or do you jump in and try to save the child?

In other words, where is the line between a reporter’s job and their responsibility as a citizen? Which comes first?

Of course, it’s really a no-brainer: You must try to save the child, because public safety and personal responsibility far outweigh any obligation you may feel to reporting. No, you won’t get that great video or photograph of a drowning child; instead, you will have saved a life.

Bob Woodward decided otherwise.

He explained his decision in a conversation with the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan, but his choice was not between releasing the tapes back in March or waiting until now. He could have shared them with the public in May or June, when it was clear that Covid-19 was killing Americans in large numbers and that the Administration was still dithering.

Woodward is not alone in saving “the best stuff” for a book that’s months away from appearing instead of reporting it in a timely basis. Michael Schmidt of The New York Times did something similar just a few weeks ago.

Why do their editors and their bosses go along with this practice of withholding critical information? The Times pays Schmidt’s salary, and, while Woodward is no longer on the Post’s payroll, he has an office there and the honorific title of Associate Editor.

I’m trying to imagine how Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil would have responded if I had withheld the tape of DC Chancellor Michelle Rhee firing a principal so that I could use it in a documentary in six or eight months. I know they’d have fired me in a heartbeat….and rightly so. (And, to be clear, withholding it never would have occurred to me in the first place, and nor would it to most of the journalists I have known.)

American journalism is in deep enough trouble without this kind of behavior. Today, two thirds of the public believes that reporters are no more ethical than the politicians they are reporting on. I suspect this practice–Reporters prioritizing book sales (I.E. MONEY) over their responsibilities as citizens–contributes to the low regard the general public has for my former profession.

“The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” That’s the wry observation credited to Finley Peter Dunne. However, some reporters are obviously paying more attention to the comfort of their own bank balance.

We need strong reporting more than ever today. We need aggressive reporting and earnest truth-telling, because we are living in an age of lies and ‘alternative facts.’ Our democratic institutions are under attack as never before, and reporters who publish the truth are our first line of defense.

We can support independent journalism by subscribing to local and national newspapers–especially ones that require their reporters to publish what they have confirmed when they confirm it!

If you weren’t already convinced that the Republican Party was Donald Trump’s personal property, the 2020 Republican National Convention demonstrated that–lock, stock & barrel–the party of Dwight Eisenhower, John McCain, the two Bush presidents, Ronald Reagan, and Abraham Lincoln no longer exists.

How did this happen?  Will historians be able to point to a moment in time when Trump, a classic bully, might have been stopped if the GOP had stood up to him, instead of appeasing him? 

Historians generally agree that, when Western powers failed to stand up to Hitler after his annexation of Czechoslovakia, the die was cast.  “Peace for Our Time” was promised by Chamberlain in his and Hitler’s Munich Agreement of September, 1938, but as we know World War II soon followed.   While there were earlier events (such as The Night of the Long Knives in 1934) where strong responses to Hitler’s bullying and posturing might have forced him to back down, most see the Munich appeasement as the point of no return.

The House and Senate are a co-equal branch of government with the Constitutional responsibility for ‘advice and consent‘ on Presidential appointments and foreign treaties.  Under Republican control, they had numerous opportunities to assert their prerogatives after Trump’s election in November, 2016, but I believe the Senate’s own “Munich Moment” was its approval of Betsy DeVos on February 7, 2017 as the 11th Secretary of Education.  Their behavior then told Trump that he could do whatever he wanted….and he has.

At least three Republican Senators on the relevant Senate Committee knew Betsy DeVos was an unqualified, uncurious religious zealot with a long record of undermining public education, but they voted to approve her anyway.

All ten previous Secretaries of Education, Republicans and Democrats alike, were supporters of the institution of public education, with the possible exception of William Bennett, a conservative skeptic.  DeVos, however, was openly opposed to public schools, preferring religious schools. She and her husband (of Amway fame) used their position and their money to “Christianize” education.

“Betsy DeVos … described her efforts, using the biblical term “Shephelah,” an area where battles — including between David and Goliath — were fought in the Old Testament.  “Our desire is to be in that Shephelah, and to confront the culture in which we all live today in ways that will continue to help advance God’s Kingdom, but not to stay in our own faith territory,” she said.   ….

School choice, they say, leads to “greater Kingdom gain.” The two also lament that public schools have “displaced” the Church as the center of communities, and they cite school choice as a way to reverse that troubling trend.”

The Republican-led Senate was well aware of DeVos’s radical views, when then President-elect Trump nominated her on November 23, 2016.*  The nomination went to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, chaired by Lamar Alexander, himself a former US Secretary of Education.

DeVos embarrassed herself in her responses to questioning by Democrats, not just by suggesting that teachers needed guns in case bears attacked their school. Time and again, she demonstrated how little she knew about public schools.

I don’t recall Lamar Alexander’s telegraphing his disapproval, but he must have been appalled at the thought of DeVos running the Department of Education.  Two Republican members of the Committee, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, were convinced that DeVos wasn’t up to the job.  Since the 23-person Committee was made up of 12 Republicans and 11 Democrats (unanimous in their opposition), all it would take was a single Republican vote against the DeVos nomination to keep it from going to the Senate floor, dooming it to defeat. 

Just one vote….and two Republicans (plus Chairman Alexander) knew that she was the wrong person for the job.  So would they do the right thing? Would they assert the Senate’s ‘advice and consent’ responsibility?   Would they tell Trump that he had to send a different name, someone with credentials?

Well, you know they did none of these things. Instead, they maneuvered to try to make themselves appear to be courageous.   They were anything but.  In truth, they deserve their own chapters in a “Profiles in Political Cowardice” book.

But it’s interesting to speculate on what might have gone on behind the scenes.  Did Alexander call Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and say something like “DeVos is unqualified. We can’t send this nomination to the Senate floor. I have two Republicans who want to vote against her (and so do I).  We have to tell Trump to send us someone else.”

But even if Lamar Alexander was willing to hold his nose and vote for DeVos, what about Collins and Murkowski?  How could they vote for DeVos?  Did they dare to defy Trump? Would they stand up for the Senate’s Constitutional ‘advice and consent’ responsibility for Presidential nominations?

Mitch McConnell can count and knew that, with a 52-48 margin in the Senate, he could lose two Republicans and still get DeVos approved, because Vice President Mike Pence was empowered to break ties.  Apparently promising Collins and Murkowski that they could look strong on the Senate floor was enough to get them to approve DeVos in committee.  So they caved.

And on February 7, 2017, DeVos was confirmed by the Senate, 51-50, with Pence breaking the tie.  It was the first time in U.S. history that a Cabinet nomination was decided by the Vice President’s vote.

The faux defiance by Collins and Murkowski may have fooled their constituents (most likely all they cared about), but Trump and his minions saw right through it. They recognized it for what it was, an act of surrender.  They knew, going forward, that Collins and Murkowski could be bullied, although perhaps with a little bit of special handling.

Of course, McConnell was in their pocket anyway, because his wife had been appointed to Trump’s cabinet.

DeVos has done substantial damage to public education, including a brazen effort to divert Covid-19 relief funds to private and religious schools, so perhaps it’s worth at status report on the Republican members of that Senate Committee.  Here’s the list:

• Lamar Alexander, Tennessee, Chair
• Mike Enzi, Wyoming
• Richard Burr, North Carolina
• Johnny Isakson, Georgia
• Rand Paul, Kentucky
• Susan Collins, Maine
• Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
• Mark Kirk, Illinois
• Tim Scott, South Carolina
• Orrin Hatch, Utah
• Pat Roberts, Kansas
• Bill Cassidy, Louisiana

Lamar Alexander, Mike Enzi, and Pat Roberts are about to retire from the Senate, and Orrin Hatch and Johnny Isakson have already departed.  Lisa Murkowski is not up for re-election this fall.  Only Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine are standing for re-election in November.  Cassidy is a lock, but Collins is fighting for her political life and is facing a worthy opponent, Sara Gideon, the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives.

Those of you who believe that a strong public education system is essential to our society might consider helping send Susan Collins into retirement.  Call it your way of ‘thanking’ Senator Collins for not having the courage of her convictions–and for giving us the worst US Secretary of Education imaginable.  Here’s how to contribute to Sarah Gideon.

Suppose the Senate–meaning Collins, Murkowski, and Alexander–had done the right thing? That act would have sent Trump a clear message that the United States Senate wouldn’t rubber stamp whoever Trump sent up, that it would take seriously the responsibility for quality control.

Would the bullying have stopped? Of course not, but it’s also possible that, when other Senators noticed that Collins and Murkowski had defied Trump and were still walking around, unscarred, they might have resolved to do what they had sworn to do.

It’s even possible to imagine some Senators voting to hear the evidence for an impeachment trial (particularly the Senators who served on the Intelligence Committee that had already seen convincing evidence that Trump and his team were actively involved with the Russians prior to the 2016 election).

That would have changed our history.  So for me anyway, the vote to approve Betsy DeVos is the moment when the U.S. Senate became Trump’s lackey.

 

• Fun fact: Trump’s first choice for Secretary of Education was the now-infamous Jerry Falwell, Jr, who told CBS he turned down the job because Trump wanted at least a 4-year commitment that Falwell said he couldn’t make because Liberty University needed him.

My fellow American patriots, Welcome to this historical monument and this even more historical occasion, because today your favorite President is accepting his party’s unanimous nomination to continue to lead our beloved country to even greater heights, now that we have the China virus under control.

You know, many people said that I should come to Gettysburg or Mt. Rushmore to accept the nomination. But I’ve already been to Mt. Rushmore, and I hear that someday I will be there forever, along with Abe and the other greats.

No president in history had to face what I have faced: The Russia hoax, the China virus, Fake News, Nasty Nancy and a lot of other nasty women, and now Sleepy Joe and that woman he just picked, the nasty one with the strange name that sounds a lot like ‘Camel.’

“People, Man, Woman, Camera, Television.”  I’ll bet Sleepy Joe couldn’t pass that test! I dare you, Sleepy Joe!

Honest Abe made a famous speech here at Gettysburg, which my loyal aide Steven Miller read to me the other day,  the one where he said “Four score and seven…”   That’s how I learned that ‘score’ has another meaning than the one I’m used to.

Some people in the Democrat party or the ‘Fake News’ have criticized me for coming to what they call “Hallowed Ground” to accept your unanimous nomination, but I remind them that I am the President, and the Constitution says I can do whatever I need to do.  In other words, I decide what’s hallowed and what’s not, and not some left-leaning Democrat.  Get used to it, Democrats, the Commander in Chief is in charge of hallowing!

Besides, do you think that those two great Generals, Robert E. Lee and George Washington, gave a fig about fighting on “Hallowed Ground,” when they were deciding the Civil War?  No, they ignored those “Please Do Not Fight on Hallowed Ground” signs and went right at it.

By the way, there were good people on both sides.

Abe spoke for just a few minutes, and I think he said the world wouldn’t remember what he said, but he was wrong because people are still talking about his Gettysburg Address.  Well, this is my Gettysburg Address, your reminder that no President in history has accomplished as much as yours truly.  And I promise you, that in the next four years I will remake America, so much so that you won’t even recognize it.

Onward to victory.  Let’s Make America Great Again for the second time…..

 

Donald Trump has resumed his so-called Covid-19 briefings, this time without any medical experts. After watching one in its entirety, I am concerned about the White House Press Corps, which seems to me to be a huge part of the problem. 

 The July 23rd session was billed as focusing on public schools but began with Trump’s announcement that he was cancelling the Jacksonville part of the GOP Convention, because, he said, of his concern for the safety of his fellow Republicans.

Then he read, without enthusiasm and in a monotone, a multi-page document about the necessity for reopening schools on time, without any remote learning or part-time attendance.  With his occasional side trips, he ran on for 2100 words.

Finally he threw in this stunning tidbit: “This morning, I spoke with President Putin of Russia, and they’re going through a very hard time with this — in Moscow, in particular.” 

Got that? He told the assembled reporters that he had just spoken with Putin, the man who has put a bounty on the heads of US soldiers in Afghanistan, according to reliable US intelligence.  That news came out a month before this briefing, and Trump had not yet addressed the issue.

And then the President took questions.    

And so the glaringly obvious FIRST question should have been something like this: “Mr. President, did you ask Mr. Putin about the American intelligence community’s finding that Russia was paying Taliban fighters cash bounties for every American soldier they killed?  And, if so, what did he say?  And if you didn’t bring it up with President Putin, why not?

Instead, the first FIVE questions were about the GOP convention, followed by THREE questions about public schools and federal legislation.

Question #9 was a  ‘gotcha’ question about opening up too fast.  ‘Why are you pushing schools to open while cancelling your own meeting,’ basically trying to goad Trump, which didn’t work because he segued to a strange and nearly incomprehensible discussion of baseball relief pitcher Mariano Rivera.

Finally, a wildly inappropriate question about funding for a new FBI headquarters, which Trump responded to with a 300-word monologue, after which he thanked the Press Corps and took his leave.

NOT ONE QUESTION about the bounties!!!

The White House Press Corps includes tough and talented reporters like CNN’s Kaitlin Collins and the PBS NewsHour’s Yamiche Alcindor, and Trump did not call on either of them that afternoon. That said, it seems to me that the reporters who failed to ask Trump about the bounties ought to turn in their press passes.

In addition to questions about bounties, the White House Press Corps ought to be asking Trump the following:

“Mr. President, back in early March you said that you did not take any responsibility at all for the rising number of infections and the delays in testing.  Now that the US has more than 4 million cases and 150,000 deaths, are you willing to accept any responsibility for the situation?”

“Mr. President, back in September 2016 you promised to release your tax returns.  It was during a Presidential debate, and you said “I don’t mind releasing — I’m under a routine audit. And it’ll be released. And — as soon as the audit’s finished, it will be released.”  Sir, the audits are over, and you have been fighting with every means at your disposal to prevent Congress, legal authorities, and the American public from seeing your tax returns. Why? What’s in those tax returns that you do not want anyone to see?”

“Mr. President, Are you willing to talk about what keeps you up at night?  Do you ever lie awake thinking about the 150,000 Americans who have died of Covid-19?  Or about the surges of infections, the hot spots that are popping up everywhere and the pain that it’s causing?  Do you now wish you had treated the emerging pandemic with greater urgency, perhaps by issuing a nation-wide order to wear masks or by nationalizing some industries to produce PPE?”  

This is not all on the White House Press Corps, of course.  For example, Fox’s Chris Wallace had an hour or more one-on-one with the President recently, and the above questions didn’t appear on air, so it’s reasonable to assume Wallace did not pose them.

In fact, Trump has pretty much played the press like a drum since he declared his candidacy in 2015.  Remember those so-called press conferences he held after giving speeches?  With the stage decorated with Trump products (steaks, vodka, etc) and Trump at the podium, reporters–without microphones–would shout their questions from the back of the room.  Because TV viewers could not hear the questions, Trump could respond as he wished.  He was free to dissemble, to ignore the questions, and say whatever he felt like saying.  The very first time that happened the press should have spoken as one and said, “No more coverage until the reporters are miked!”  But that didn’t happen because Trump was “Ratings Gold” (and perhaps because the press didn’t expect him to win).   It amounted to a free pass for Trump, while many in the press obsessed about Hillary’s e-mails.

It’s past time for reporters with access to Trump to stop being part of the problem.  Reporters should be asking him tough questions, and they should keep on asking them!  So what if he stomps out of his press conference and bans Kaitlin Collins (as he did Tuesday) from future events.  Other WHPC reporters ought to act in solidarity and ask those same questions….and keep on asking them so that the American people can get an honest picture of the man and his leadership.