Valerie Strauss read Arne Duncan’s book. There is nothing Duncan did or said during his seven years as Secretary of Education that moved us beyond the stale and failed ideas in George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind. In education, W. got another two terms for policies that were wrong from the beginning, based on the erroneous belief that schools and teachers needed to be published if scores don’t go up.
Valerie Strauss has a long memory. She recounts just a few of the times Duncan accused educators or parents of “lying” to students, telling them they were doing better in school than they were. He has a low opinion of our students and their teachers. She notes that he continues to believe that standardized testing is the very best way to gauge how students are faring and whether their teachers are any good.
Duncan seems to believe that calling people “liars” is a successful tactic.
He wasted billions on his “School Improvement Grants” and discounts his own department’s judgement that his ideas failed. His campaign for school choice paved the way for Betsy DeVos and her even bigger campaign for school choice.
She writes:
“Duncan still thinks, apparently, his biggest mistake involved poor communication rather than the substance of the policies. If only the Education Department had better communicators, the states could have convinced everyone that standardized testing is valuable in holding schools and teachers accountable — even though there’s no evidence of that in the testing era that began with the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.
“Let’s be clear: Ample evidence exists that Duncan’s push for annual standardized testing for high-stakes decisions on teachers, students and schools was destructive and in some cases nonsensical. In some places, teachers were evaluated on students they didn’t have and subjects they didn’t teach simply because test scores had to be used as an evaluation metric.
“He still insists the problem was lousy communication.
“Duncan is now focused on gun control and says he has long been concerned about the subject, but he didn’t make it a priority when he was education secretary.
“Back then, he talked about the importance of kids being in class every weekday and supported expanding the school day, but now he is trying to build support for a nationwide strike of public schools until Congress passes comprehensive gun-control legislation. (Given the importance of education to him, it is unclear why he didn’t call for a general strike of workers, while kids and teachers continued to show up at school, but never mind.) He’s been to Parkland, Fla., where 17 people died in a high school shooting, seeking the community’s help with the boycott idea.
“In his book, he wrote that if he could do the education-secretary stint over again, he would push even harder for his policies. It is reminiscent of the insistence by Margaret Spellings, the education secretary under President George W. Bush when No Child Left Behind was passed, that the federal law was great long after its fatal flaws had been revealed to most everyone else.
“Arne Duncan never seems to learn.”
If only the Democrats hadn’t been such enthusiastic allies ….
If only the Democrats in power didn’t CONTINUE to be enthusiastic allies…
Yes, most Dems continue to share Arne’s bad ideas. They don’t think often or deeply about education. Teachers and parents should attend every town hall, every open meeting, and make their voices heard.
Most Democrats are weasels when it comes to charters. Remind them that the NAACP and Black Lives Matter called for a moratorium on charters.
My response to a phone call for a political donation was to hang up after the answer to my 3rd question. The questions (1) Is the candidate a Democrat? (2) Does he support public schools? and, (3) Does he reject charter schools? The answer to the questions in order were, Yes, yes and No, I can’t say that.
The day I became convinced no one in the Obama Administration knew what was going on with ed reform in the states was the day they sent a HUGE chunk of federal funding to Ohio to open more charter schools.
They did that WHILE every news outlet in the state was exhaustively detailing the problems with the charter sector.
It was like two tracks- whatever the Obama Administration believed was happening here running alongside what was really happening here. The tracks never intersected, they never crossed, and then they started to DIVERGE, where there was a widening gap between state reality and national ed reform. The gap is so wide now that DeVos is irrelevant. Nothing she does makes a bit of difference to any public school family in the country.
Amen.
“Titanic Designers Bemoan Iceberg’s P.R.”
Good one. About the same conclusion as Frederick Hess. https://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickhess/2018/08/08/5-inadvertent-lessons-from-former-secretary-of-education-arne-duncans-memoir/#4a336b996904
Thanks for the great link!
Love the metaphor!
“Titanic Deform”
Deform is like Titanic
With iceberg in it’s sight
It’s “Full speed!” And “Don’t panic!”
“The ship is water tight”
Duncan lives in an elitist bubble and has nothing to show for his failed policies. His book reveals his bias, not what is helpful to education.
According the DOE mission statement, the goals are the following: “Mission. ED’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
Since it has been proven that privatization is the opposite of “equal access,” Congress should not appoint anyone to lead the DOE that does not believe in common schools. Supporters of charters and vouchers do not support equal access as it is the schools that do the choosing, not the students.
Au contraire. He has lot$ to show for his failed policies. Or did you think actually improving education was the goal?
Agreed. In what other field could a former basketball player with no experience or skills strike it rich?
A former two bit basketball player who played for a nothing team in a nowhere league.
DFER picked Duncan for Ed Secretary, after Linda Darling-Hammond acted as Obama’s surrogate throughout the campaign of 2008 and expected to be selected as Secretary.
DFER consisted of big hedge fund contributors to Obama’s campaign. When DFER was first organized, Obama was its first speaker at its first meeting in a luxurious duplex apartment on Central Park South in Manhattan. That was 2005, according to Steve Brill’s book “Class Warfare.” DFER loved Obama. When he was elected, DFER chose Duncan, and Obama gave them what they wanted.
Diane, as I seem to recall, DFER wanted anyone BUT Linda Darling Hammond. Duncan may or may not have been their first choice. This touches upon that https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey/the-hatchet-job-on-linda_b_155104.html and this one describes what went on behind closed doors at the convention. https://tultican.com/2013/02/ “In 2008, Gates teamed with Eli Broad and the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) to make presidential candidates focus on issues like standards, teacher quality and accountability. Linda Darling-Hammond was Barack Obama’s spokesperson on education, but during the Democratic Party’s national convention while teachers were in the crowd “fired up and ready to go” Gates, Broad and the DFER were busy hijacking education policy. They were able to push out professional educators like Darling-Hammond who were seen as too friendly to unions and replace them with people like the failed Chicago school CEO, Arne Duncan. He has no education experience or training, yet he became secretary of education. He would not qualify to be a substitute teacher in many school districts. His qualifications were that he supported testing accountability, charter schools and disliked unions.”
DFER had a list of the candidates it wanted for Ed Secretary.
Duncan was #1.
Klein was #2.
By the way, Duncan’s book got a rave review today on Wall Street Journal by acrightwinger who commended him for his contempt for unions and teachers.
Also, there’s this.http://www.chalkbeat.info/posts/ny/2008/11/24/next-generation-reformers-nervous-about-darling-hammond/
There was a coordinated DFER campaign to knock out LDH and it succceeded
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2009/05/ “In recent months, DFER has had a number of high-profile successes, chief among them a highly coordinated media campaign to call into question the work of Obama education adviser Linda Darling-Hammond, once considered a top contender for the job of education secretary. During the same week in early December, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Boston Globe published editorials or op-eds based on DFER’s anti-Darling-Hammond talking points, which focused on the Stanford professor’s criticisms of Teach for America and other alternative-certification programs for teachers. Less than two weeks later, Obama appointed DFER’s choice to the Education Department post, Chicago schools CEO Duncan.”
“In October, the U.S. Education Department announced $157 million in charter school grants, including a recommended $71 million to Ohio, despite the fact that its charter sector has long been, at best, a mess.
At the time, many in the education world wondered why the department had given any money to Ohio, given that a newspaper had done an analysis revealing that the state’s charter sector had misspent tax dollars more than any other, including school districts, court systems, public universities, hospitals and local governments.”
They also did this WHILE Governor Kasich and the ed reform-dominated state legislature was cutting every PUBLIC school budget in the state.
I mean, come on. They had ONE goal- expand charter schools- every public school in the country took a backseat to that goal.
They did not serve students in existing public schools. Public school students were NOT a priority. They’re still not a priority in the federal government. No one values them or their schools. We spend 90% of our time and energy debating ed reform privatization proposals. Public schools are rarely even mentioned unless it’s for an anti-drug or anti-violence initiative. This is how they see our kids? As violent drug addicts? That’s all ed reformers offer public school families?
Thanks but no thanks. Stay in DC. You’re not helping anyone out here.
Despite the failure & fraud rampant in OH charter sector, Duncan’s massive $ give-a-way to Ohio charters came close in time to the 2016 presidential election. The cynic in me is convinced it was a message of reassurance to donor in a key swing state that Dems wouldn’t back track on privatization & union busting.
Correction: The cynic in me is convinced it was a message of reassurance to DONORS in that key swing state that Dems…
Arne And Obama seemed, at first, so pro everything liberal including respecting teachers and public education. Then their neoliberal destructiveness emerged.
Yes, Obama and Arne were/are a huge disappointment on education to say the least; RTTT was worse than NCLB. I voted twice for Obama, education was one of many important issues and voting GOP was out of the question. There is the all important SCOTUS and Obama gave us Sotomayor and Kagan, very decent liberals and not far right gargoyles like Gorsuch or the late Scalia. Maybe someday in the far distant future we will get a true progressive candidate that stands an actual possibility of winning?
Is this true? I don’t remember it. I remember being scared from the very beginning with the misuse of the stimulus package…which was very early.
Obama was a good faker during is campaign — even better than most.
Agree, Emanuele.
Yes!
Re posted at Medium, https://medium.com/@rickhess99/5-inadvertent-lessons-from-former-secretary-of-education-arne-duncans-memoir-1ee154723182 as a comment after the article “5 inadvertent lessons from former Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s memoir”
I also added this in a second comment: SHAME ON DUNCAN - - this liar who helped to end public schools by implimenting the Bush NCLB act , which left all children behind - the testing of kids, that are supposed to evalaute their teachers is a pure hoax!
Duncan ended public edcuation by emptying the schools of the experienced professionals who KNEW WHAT LEARNING LOOKED LIKE, and who knew how to FACILITATE AND ENABLE LEARNING. Remember those words; they are the ones that are essential to grasping the PROFESSION (Pedagogy) which underlies the pracitce and the EDUCATION of genuine, authentic, teacher-practitoners. (as opposed to trained,novice TFA’s).
Duncan made it all about ‘teaching’ something he knew nothing about, even as the media - owned by the billioniares and corporations anxious to privatize education as the had done to health-care - sent out their ‘fake news’ about all those lazy, old, bad teachers.
Makes you wonder why, with continued failure and ineffectiveness, the test and punish parrots are elevated to leadership roles. Who would do that?
ANOTHER LONG POST, BUT WORTH THE READ:
When the Atlanta cheating scandal broke in Summer 2011 — a scandal directly attributable to Duncan’s aggressive advocating of test-score-based merit pay system and also to NCLB itself — Duncan agreed to a TV interview with a local Atlanta reporter, not knowing that this female journalist had a firm and comprehensive grasp of the situation, and thus, could ask him tough questions that no one else was asking him.
This resulted in a riveting exchange.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
(QUICK BACKGROUND: the Atlanta Supe, had an annual event where all Atlanta’s principals were gathered at a large theater. Those principals with high standardized test scores, were seated on the floor of the event, while the ones with low scores were stuck up in two levels of balconies. This blithering idiot Supe, Beverly Hall, would then scream at the low-scores principals,
“Why aren’t you down here on the floor with them??!!” pointing to her favored high-scores principals.
“What’s wrong with y’all??!!! Next year, if you’re not on the floor, you won’t be in the balcony neither??!! You’ll be getting the boot!!”
Wow, is all I have to say to that one.
Yeah, how’d that management approach work out, Bev?
Well, she’s dead, so she can’t answer, but back before the cheating scandal that arose of out of this, for this abominable behavior, Hall received:
1) fulsome flattery from then-Secretary-of-Ed. Arne Duncan, which led to
2) her winning the 2009 Superintendent of the Year Medal, and
3? her earning some $600,000 in bonuses for raising test scores.
Here she is, posing with the Supe of the Year medal:
http://epmgaa.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photos/2013/04/01/image_t750x550.JPG?d885fc46c41745b3b5de550c70336c1b382931d2
Well, Hall spared herself, and the rest of us the spectacle of being imprisoned as she died before going to trial, but not before being indicted on dozens of counts related to the cheating scandal. Her co-defendants got years in prison, so Hall likely would have as well, had she not died, but that’s another story.)
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Back to the Atlanta reporter who took on Arne Duncan back in 2011. Apparently, the only lesson that this idiot Duncan learned from the Atlanta cheating scandal was that all we need to do in response to the Atlanta cheating scandal was “better test security” which should be “an easy fix.”
Oh great, Arne! Thanks for settling the matter, and reassuring us about that.
Here’s an analysis of this seven-year old interview with Duncan, which shows how hard it is to get a straight answer out of him.
I imagine he learned his Betsy-Devos-level, question-ducking prowess from his then-Communication Director Peter Cunningham.
First, here’s the video:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
Check out this video of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan answering questions in the immediate aftermath of the Atlanta cheating scandal. Notice the answers… or rather NON-answers that Duncan gives to what he is asked by this Atlanta TV reporter (who, by the way, does an awesome job hitting Duncan with tough questions).
For example, she asks a simple “YES” or “NO” question, meaning that, after the question has been asked, the first word out of Duncan’s mouth should be either “YES” or “NO”, followed by more detail and clarification… as in, for example…
“Yes, and let me tell you why… ”
or
“No, that’s not the case, and here’s why… ”
DUNCAN doesn’t do that, instead spewing double-talk. It’s sort of fascinating and morbidly entertaining to watch Duncan flail away in his attempt to answer tough questions:
PART ONE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
01:05 – 01:25
REPORTER: “What’s your position on testing? Is there too much emphasis on the standardized testing?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “Well, what you want to do is you want to make sure you’re evaluating students each year, but the way to get good results is through good teaching, and when you cheat… *you… again, you do grave, grave harm to children, and so there’s a right way to do it, and the vast majority of folks around the country do it the right way.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Huh??? WTF??? Where’s the “YES” or “NO”?
If she had asked him, “What’s the key to getting good results on standardized testing? What’s the right way to do this?” … then the answer he gave would be responsive to the question, but it’s not, so in his response, he’s clearly dodging the question.
The obvious conclusion that people were making back in 2011 (and still are seven years later) is that the over-emphasis on standardized testing results and the punishment-rewards (monetary or otherwise) meted out based on these results DID cause or at least greatly contribute to the cheating fiasco in Atlanta.
However, Duncan—following his corporate masters’ marching orders—wants to shut that idea or thought process down.
PART TWO:
Check out the next question and Duncan’s non-answer:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
01:25 – 01:41
REPORTER: “Some people have been critical all along of No Child Left Behind and the testing portions of this. Umm, how fair is that criticism?”
DUNCAN: “Well, we want to fix the No Child Left Behind Law. That’s a much longer conversation, and we’re working very hard in Congress to do… to do that now.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Again… W-T-F?
His response is that he wants to “fix” NCLB. Well, exactly WHAT about NCLB do you want to “fix”?
For Duncan’s answer to be responsive to the question, he must then address criticism of “the testing portions” that the reporters’ question references — NCLB’s “portions” that created the breeding ground and circumstances for cheating scandals like the ones in Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere —- and Duncan ain’t going there.
The reporter is pushing Duncan to admit that all this test-based evaluating/punishing/rewarding is harmful, but he responds with pointless blather about how “we’re working very hard in Congress to do that now.”
Really?… “to do WHAT now”? You mean that politicians and education officials should “fix the testing portions” that are harming education and harming kids? If not, then what DO you mean?
Again, no answer.
The reporter then questions whether, in urban areas with so many challenging factors teachers have to fight, that demanding “unrealistic” results led to the cheating problem, that when asked to do the impossible, teachers and principals who are threatened with firing for not achieving the impossible, will then be driven to cheat or else. (which is the conclusion one gets from reading Rachel Aviv’s NEW YORKER article.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/21/wrong-answer .)
This is another great question, by the way. Kudos to the reporter!
Again, Duncan totally ducks this query. He challenges those doubters who think that the NCLB or Race To The Top benchmarks were “”unrealistic”” that they are the ones in the wrong, that he is “seeing students learn every single year,” or, in other words, using standardized tests as the basis for awarding incentives is indeed working. The cheating scandal notwithstanding, Atlanta kids did achieve gains due to this approach, and those who doubt this are racist, or whatever.
This is Duncan’s version of the Michelle Rhee denial and diversionary response to evidence of cheating in D.C. : “You must be racist to think that poor, minority kids can’t learn. What’s WRONG with YOU?”
PART THREE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
01:41 – 02:14
REPORTER: “But, but the whole idea of unrealistic measurements… something for urban districts, et cetera… Is that – ?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “I don’t think there is anything ‘unrealistic’ about seeing students learn every single year, and you have in many urban areas tremendous progress being made. The sad fact is that I actually think in Atlanta there’s probably tremendous progress being made… fairly… and unfortunately, this, this… scandal is going to cloud that… ummm…. but this does not in any way take away from, or shouldn’t take away from the hard work, and the accomplishments, and the improved graduation rates that we’re seeing in many urban districts around the country.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Let’s move on to the next question, another attempt to get Secretary Duncan to concede, that at least in part, that the Atlanta school district’s monetary incentives helped create the problem. This is the closest he gets to being responsive to the question being asked.
And his responses are as idiotic as the book Duncan just wrote.
He says that monetary incentives ARE NOT ONLY GOOD for education, but that we should have started doing them long before now, and from this point forward, start expanding them and doing them MORE.
Oh really?
The only problem with Arne’s claim is…. the overwhelming evidence shows that…
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES DO NOT WORK.
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES HAVE NEVER WORKED.
THESE MONETARY INCENTIVES WILL NEVER WORK.
All the decades of evidence — at the time most prominently the Atlanta cheating scandal — show that not only do they not improve education; they actually do grave harm to it.
But hey, Arne thinks we should keep trying anyway, so we’re just going to have to be stuck with more of it. At the end of his spiel, he vomits up the idea that using monetary incentives is “not a hard thing to do”, that you just “have to do it with integrity.”
Really? “Not a hard thing to do”?
Then how come it has NEVER worked, that historically, doing so has an utter and total failure rate?
Duncan thinks that — in using monetary and other incentives based on students’ test scores — not only can and should we “spotlight and “celebrate” good teachers and principals with monetary rewards (the next question BEL0W), but WE NEED TO DO IT MORE, when any idiot observing the cheating scandals in Atlanta, Michelle Rhee’s D.C., and in countless other places shows we should do it LESS, AND TOTALLY CEASE IT ALTOGETHER.
Along with the rest of the corporate ed. reform industry, Duncan’s assumption is that prior to, or without those rewards to push them, teachers will or are holding back their “A Game”, and not giving it their best effort, and that with monetary rewards, they’ll finally get off their duff and do the excellent job they should have been doing all along.
This comes from a man who has never taught a day in his life, or worked as a principal a day in his life, for if he had, he’d know that this is all total garbage.
PART FOUR: (reporter asks a great question; Duncan gives idiotic, albeit honest answer)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
02:14 – 03:02
REPORTER: “Should… a lot of this is about money, I think, you know, that both teachers and principals are evaluated by their test scores of their students, and there’s a lot of money involved in this. Should that (i.e. monetary incentives based on kids’ test scores) be de-coupled from student learning?”
ARNE DUNCAN: “Well, I think rewarding teacher excellence is important. I think I would argue the opposite, (i.e. not “de-couple”, but increase and expand the coupling) that far too often in our country, we haven’t celebrated great teachers, we haven’t celebrated great principals who are making a huge difference in students’ lives. You just want to make sure that they’re doing it honestly, and again, the vast vast majority of teachers are doing an amazing job, often in very difficult circumstances, in helping students beat the odds every single day.
“I think we need to do a better job of spotlighting that, and incentivizing that, and encouraging that, and learning from that. In education, we’ve been far too reluctant to talk about success. We need to do that. We just need to make sure that we’re doing it with integrity…. not that hard to do.”
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
The reporter finishes with a questions about one of the intangible ways that this cheating scandal harms education and society as a whole. She gets personal and talks about how this cheating scandal has taken away her “last heroes”, the teachers, and on and on.
I’m sick and tired of transcribing this words of this vile person (Duncan, not the reporter, whom I admire)… so, if you want to, you can watch her ask this last question and Duncan answer it, and the entire video here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/atlanta-cheating-scandal-_n_892169.html
I just checked, and the HuffPost and the Atlanta TV station have since removed the video.
Oh well, my transcription survives.
The internet never forgets.
Not does it ever forgive.
Nor.
Damned spell correct. and
Damned spell correct added “and” after the period.
SomeDAM Poet,
Spell-checkers are making us dumb.
Thank you, Jack!
Because Arne Duncan never learns, let’s use VAM based on Duncan’s ignorance and incompetence to grade, rank and punish, the schools he attended with a FAILING grade.
Arne Duncan’s Education:
Harvard University (1987) = FAILED
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools = FAILED
University of Chicago = FAILED
If we extend that VAM to his parents, then Susan Goodrich (née Morton) and Starkey Davis Duncan, Jr., his father and mother are FAILURES at parenting.
Failures at conceiving even because what they conceived was a failure.
Got that right, Lloyd. Thank you.
Arne is as bad at thinking as dump. Arne is a con artist.
Arne the frolicking carnival con man masquerading as a human with empathy where there is none.
Lloyd,
RE: “Arne the frolicking carnival con man masquerading as a human with empathy where there is none.”
You are right on. Gosh, you are smart.
Sorry, but I disagree with the heading you posted. Arne learned very quickly how to play the corporate/education profit game and is still excelling at it. He never was much interested in, let alone willing to develop a conscience or speak the truth…that hasn’t changed one iota.
Agree! Arne is a weasel.
Arnie Duncan not only “Doesn’t Learn”, he has adopted others’ concepts and programs as his own and we call that Plagiarism. This new book should be boycotted!!!
Shirley Rausher
I won’t read it. I have a personal rule about not reading ghost written books.
Amen!
Any Democratic politician associated with the Third Way is no Democrat. Winston Fischer of Civic Builders BOD, a charter school construction outfit and contributor to Andrew Cuomo’s campaign, was part of Third Way. Third Way led attacks against Elizabeth Warren. The organization is filled with investment bankers. Last month, Third Way had an invitation-only event in Columbus, Ohio to strategize about how to defeat progressives (NBC News). Billionaire donors, lobbyists and Democratic elected officials were in attendance. They used the same terminology, creation of a “safe space”, that the Senior Congressional Education Staff Network, funded by Gates, uses.
Save me!
The Third Way, an organization of investment bankers, etc. and Clinton Democrats, met in Columbus, Ohio last month to find a way to defeat an agenda for working people. Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, who wants Pelosi’s position, was at the meeting. He told the crowd, , “You’re not going to make me hate somebody just because they’re rich. I want to be rich.” He’s in the right line of work in the corrupt D.C. that now exists. Mitch Landrieu, Major of N.O. was also there. Avoid them like the plague.
Linda,
Thank you for posting about THAT MEETING of the entitled, greedy NEO-Liberal Democrat weasels. When I read about this meeting didn’t surprise me that it was in Columbus, O-SIGH-O.
As an aside, America is in big trouble from those who graduated from Colleges of BS.
Duncan is rewriting his history for his own posterity and image. He probably dictated a lot and his words and lack thereof got heavily revised and edited.
Today, I gave the DNC person who called, an earful. I usually ignore those calls, but today I felt compelled to communicate my concerns and horror.
The DNC needs to also “own” Dump being potus.