For Immediate Release
March 22, 2020
Contact:
Oriana Korin
202-374-6103
okorin@aft.org
http://www.aft.org
American Federation of Teachers Endorses Joe Biden for President
WASHINGTON—The American Federation of Teachers’ executive council voted today to endorse former Vice President Joe Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary as the party’s nominee for president in 2020p. The union represents 1.7 million educators, healthcare professionals and public employees across more than 3,000 locals.
The announcement comes after an unprecedented year of AFT member engagement around the 2020 election and the endorsement process, with more than 300,000 members nationwide participating in candidate events, town halls, polls, regional conferences and other efforts to maximize member participation leading up to the November election.
The AFT’s endorsement decision has been guided by three criteria: selecting a candidate who shares the union’s values, who has the support of the union’s members, and who can ultimately defeat President Trump in November. Internal union polling over the last two weeks has demonstrated that members, like Democrats across the nation, have coalesced behind the former vice president: he earned a majority (60 percent) of member support in all of the union’s constituencies and leads his nearest competitor by a 2 to 1 margin. 75 percent of the Democratic membership support the AFT making an endorsement in the primary.
“Before the COVID-19 epidemic, the 2020 election was about the soul of our country. Now it’s about our soul, our safety, our health, our security and our economic well-being. Joe Biden is the experienced and empathic leader our country needs right now,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten. “His character was forged getting up and going to work every day and trying to make life better for his family, facing the ups and downs so many of us face; it was tested by unspeakable loss and grief in life; and it was nurtured through public service, a love of people and the belief in the dignity of every human.”
Weingarten continued: “Biden is with us on investing in public education; making college a reality for everyone; fixing the broken Public Service Loan Forgiveness program; making healthcare a human right, not a privilege for the wealthy; prioritizing clean energy and environmental justice; and building an economy that respects the value of workers’ voices. His whole career has been devoted to building a pathway to the middle class for the millions of people facing an affordability crisis daily. It’s time to give him the chance to do that as president.
“In this moment of worldwide crisis, the contrast with Trump is clear. Our country is navigating the greatest challenge we have battled in generations, and it is essential that we rally around a candidate who can show courage, conviction and compassion in the face of uncertainty.
“Throughout this national emergency, the president and his administration have failed to secure testing and personal protective equipment to safeguard our frontline healthcare providers, have attempted to conceal the severity of the virus and downplay the public health risks, and have refused to deploy the full arsenal of the federal government’s resources, leaving the difficult work of leadership to our nation’s governors. Now more than ever, we need a standard-bearer who is actually looking out for us, and who has a proven track record of steering the country successfully through economic and social upheaval.
“From the beginning, our endorsement process and ultimate decision was guided by three principles: finding a candidate who shares our values, who has a clear path to victory, and who enjoys the support of a clear majority of our members. That time has come, and that candidate is Joe Biden.”
Follow AFT President Randi Weingarten: http://twitter.com/rweingarten
The American Federation of Teachers is a union of 1.7 million professionals that champions fairness; democracy; economic opportunity; and high-quality public education, healthcare and public services for our students, their families and our communities. We are committed to advancing these principles through community engagement, organizing, collective bargaining and political activism, and especially through the work our members do.
Randi Weingarten Lorretta Johnson Evelyn DeJesus
PRESIDENT SECRETARY-TREASURER EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO
Communications Department • 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W. • Washington, DC 20001 • T: 202-879-4458 • F: 202-879-4580 • http://www.aft.org
AFT Teachers • AFT PSRP • AFT Higher Education • AFT Public Employees • AFT Nurses and Health Professionals
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Watch this podcast on Joe Biden’s lies…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea1p1eevcfo
“Internal union polling over the last two weeks…”
Oh c’mon! Does anyone seriously believe there has been any real “internal union polling” over the last two weeks? I know what every teacher I know has been doing for the last two weeks – the same thing as most other employed adults: frantically trying to figure out how they can do their job digitally from home while also caring for their own kids that are suddenly not in school as well as taking care of and worrying about older and ill family members while trying not to get the virus themselves.
For the AFT to make this announcement at this time – and in favor of the one candidate who hasn’t made a single public appearance since Tuesday – is just sick opportunism. There is rot to the core of this country.
I agree with what dienne77 says above.
Me too what dienne said.
BTW, anyone who thinks Biden has a “clear” path to victory is delusional. Trump has a 55% approval rating right now because he’s been on TV every single day talking about things like cash payments and eviction moratoriums. Now, yes, educated people know his efforts have been crazy, disorganized, ill-informed, contradictory, far short of what’s necessary and often downright dangerous. But to the majority of people, it simply seems like he’s doing the best he can with a horrible global crisis.
Meanwhile, Biden himself has been AWOL while other Democrats have been actually opposing the few positive strides the Trump administration is offering, like those very cash payments which would mean so much to so many people right now. Unless the Democrats seriously step up their game (which, given their history since at least the Clinton years is not likely), what people will remember in November will be: Trump was there for us; the Democrats stonewalled.
Democrats have been opposing a bill that hides big giveaways to the donor class and falls short on helping the working class. While I think they are right to do so, they need to step up their messaging on the truth of what’s in the Replutocrat bills or they will play right into McConnells setup, proposing a cure that the Dumbocrats are sure to vote against and thereby making themselves look bad. FWIW, there’s no way any checks can be sent out in a few short days since there’s no IRS or any agency data base that can serve that purpose. we’re talking months here, and the rethugs will try to saddle the dems with that too. The dems are actually trying to help and the replutocrats are joyously fiddling while America burns. Newt gingrich is so happy, the rethugs are just continuing with his tactics. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/
“Step up their messaging” – Media Matters reported that Republicans get substantially more air time on network programs than do Democrats. And, if a review of the time that establishment Dems get, was compared to the amount of time those to their left get, we would understand the real situation.
AOC is refreshing because she seeks interview time. A lot of Dems in D.C. keep their heads low so that they don’t attract the attention of moneyed interests on the right looking to target Dems. for attack.
Weingarten continued: “Biden also likes baseball, Chevrolets and apple pie” when he isn’t watering down Bernie Sanders’ ideas.
Randi added that she plans to bet on Secretariat to win the Kentucky Derby and will urge all members to support her in opposing nuclear warfare.
She also added that
“Biden likes babies”
Biden likes baseball
And babies and pies
Biden likes football
And owls that are wise
Biden hates viruses
Sewers and dumps
Biden hates calluses
Dewars and Trumps
Wow! I’ve never seen Randi Weingarten lying so much through her teeth – I mean fangs – since she last fawned over Bill Gates.
You go Randi! Extoll those phony virtues of Biden. Do what you do best!
Lie! . . . . . . .
If Randi and Lily can make endorsements in the middle of a pandemic, then, da#n it, Bernie should continue campaigning.
Randi was a Clinton Superdelegate. The Obama/Biden admin really propelled charter schools forward. Biden’s brother Frank has earned quite a bit of money off of charter schools.
Really, Randi? So we teachers can continue to get stabbed in the back by smirking centrist Dems, who will tell us we have no place left to go.
I’m pulling my donations from mu union COPE fund.
I’m a centrist, and I’m not smirking.
Sorry, type “my union COPE fund.”
The stable of stable geniuses at the Fordham Institute for the Securing of Big Paychecks for Officers of the Fordham Institute just released an article in its Gadfly Droppings Newsletter suggesting that if the schools can open before June, it would be a great idea for the schools of Ohio to go ahead with testing so that they can “gauge where exactly a student stands after an extended break from school.” (Ohio Gadfly Droppings Daily, March 19, 2020).
These people actually believe (or are paid to pretend that they believe) that the state tests validly measure what they purport to measure and that they do so in a fine-grained manner (“exactly where a student stands”).
This is Trump-level stupidity.
Fordham, where thinking tanks.
When will union ‘leaders’ listen to their members? Perhaps that will happen when the ‘leaders’ actually arise from the workers, with a decade or two of ‘practical’ experience in the craft and calling.
I had a discussion once with a County Superintendent who had once been a teacher. This guy had hired me directly, and backed me when I came into conflict with my Principal (perhaps not a good management tactic, but he wanted to dump the Principal, so …) I asked why he decided to go into administration, and he said that he felt that he could help more kids if he did so. I believe him, however then farther away from the classroom he moved, the farther he moved away from the kids.
I would follow a person like my former Superintendent. He had, at least. some experience in the classroom and his heart was directed toward the same goals as mine. I understand that teachers (like me) are egoists, and herding them is like herding cats. But so often our ‘leaders’ care more about their own personal power and not so much about education (as a concept). I suppose that’s why I stayed in the classroom.
From a pure, raw political perspective, this doesn’t make sense. Why the rush? What’s the upside? Draw it out. Get some commitments and concessions. Let ’em know you’ve got expectations. Truly mysterious. And as usual, it calls into question the quality of teacher union leadership. Being an Ohio Democrat stuck with the arguably the worst state party in the country, I know what it means to be constantly underwhelmed, taken for granted, and being stuck with lousy prospects.
Feeling the same pain.
Just because the AFT is endorsing, doesn’t mean that one has to vote that way. This really does give credibility to those loving the Janus decision.
Biden must be made to understand these few things at least. FIRST, Bernie’s education platform is the best we’ve seen in decades, and that’s true because he spoke to actual teachers and teacher educators as a way to develop it. He ignored the corporate suits, tech gurus and other ideological miscreants busily involved in perpetrating the hostile takeover of true Public Education. SECOND, Arne Dun-can’t was the gateway drug that led us directly to Betsy DeVoid. They are two toxic pea pods growing on the same mutant bush’s that were planted in the polluted soil of “reform”. Obama made a HUGE mistake when he listened to the scum at DFER and failed to select the most qualified person on his education transition team, Linda Darling-Hammond, an actual expert on all things education. DFER wanted anyone but her. THIRD, an analogy. Would any sane person put Bill Gates, Eli Broad, The Walton Family Foundation, Jeb’s Chiefs For Change, the disreputable collection of hedge fund managers, oligarchs and others who have never served in the armed forces and have no knowledge of it in charge of the day to day combat operations of the US military? HELL NO, so why would we trust these same people who have no knowledge of the how and why of teaching and learning in charge of the nations Public Education system? If Biden deviates from the basic idea of trusting teachers to lead our nations education system we must hold his feet to the fire until he wakes up and smells the coffee or we burn them off.
Jon,
As you can see, the AFT is NOT holding Biden’s feet to any fire, but (rather) instead giving him ammunition to claim that teachers are behind him.
Perhaps teachers need to first get their own house in order. They need to get rid of lobbyist representatives and replace them with people that actually served in the classroom. They need to consider themselves to have a set of moral basics concerning their profession (I still consider it to be a profession) and demand that someone ‘representing’ them espouse that ideal.
From personal experience, I know that both teaching and lobbying are full time occupations. An effective teacher cannot put in the time to effectively build the relationships necessary to make an impact in a legislature. However, neither a lobbyist nor a union ‘leader’ can ‘represent’ teachers without at least spending a few years in their shoes.
It’s not going to be Bernie. So sorry! A better use of your time is to encourage Biden to utilize some of Sander’s better ideas when he gets to the White House. We also need to encourage Joe to read Diane Ravitch’s books to set him straight on what is wrong in education so he can reboot and get rid of charter schools, Common Core, and senseless testing.
I agree completely. This is the only pragmatic path left if you care about the range of issues affecting public education.
I worry that Joe Biden will rely on the old guard of the failed Bush-Obama regime for his education policy: Education Trust and the Center for American Policy. These groups adore standardized testing, charter schools, VAM, and closing schools with low scores instead of helping them with proven practices like small classes.
Gates, Broad, John King, and Duncan are waiting in the wings.
But I will support Biden and hope that someone near him warns him that NCLB and Race to the Top failed.
I’m also hoping that Biden will listen to reasonable voices and not the old Vanguard. If he is wise, he will invite you to the White House and listen to your suggestions. Your readers should start a letter writing campaign/petition.
In other words – stay healthy, we need you,
I just hope Biden us not listening to voices in his head.
I agree.
No, the Governor of New York.
Whom do we think Albert Shanker would have supported—without flinching—Bernie, Biden or middle-of-nowhere Warren?
As union president for life, with little (if any) real classroom experience, Weingarten coasts along blithely from year to year without providing direction or leadership to her members.
Al Shanker would have supported Biden. With enthusiasm. The union split in New York City in the 1930s. To the left went people who would have aligned with Sanders. The UFT emerged as the democratic socialists (who had little in common with those of the same name today), and Al inherited their mantle.
I much prefer the AFT publications and positions to the feel-good pap from the NEA . . .
I am disappointed in NEA and AFT. Biden is not the candidate if you’re trying to improve the lives of your students and their families.
My prediction is that many of the vast majority of young voters who support Bernie Sanders will show their disgust with the DNC and old school Democrats who once again have done everything possible to scuttle the campaign that truly held out hope for meaningful change and hope for the future, by simply not voting. Whether from anger or loss of hope, this will allow the GOP enough of an opening to defeat another centrist Democratic candidate (Gore, Kerry, Clinton).
The Democratic Party has to become more progressive and stop trying to be like the (vile) GOP. Working and poor people have given enough – we need to level the playing field. The status quo Joe Biden promises is not nearly enough. Don’t blame Bernie Sanders or his supporters. Those young voters very likely won’t play a game that they see as rigged against them. It’s why a majority of eligible voters don’t vote. The lack of real leadership, and even corruption, from the DNC is leading us down a wormhole that promises more ugliness in our future.
I truly hope I’m wrong, but with the outright cheating and voter suppression antics of the GOP, I truly fear for our future.
Sent from my iPhone
>
I couldn’t be more disappointed in The American Federation of Teachers.’
Was there not a single history teacher in the AFT who recalled Joe Biden’s history of plagiarism or his anti-bussing and anti-racial integration? Are AFT members unaware of Biden’s unsubstantiated and unjust “tough-on-crime” policies? Does the AFT dismiss Biden’s multi Corporations’ dark money financing? Didn’t they know he voted for NAFTA and war based on unsubstantiated WMD..
Most of all, did AFT learn nothing from the mistakes of the failed 2016 DNC campaign? Biden WILL NOT, CANNOT win against Trump.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intercepted-with-jeremy-scahill/id1195206601?i=1000467973395
most on-target line I associate over and over to this push for “going back” to Biden: is everyone truly UNAWARE of his past actions?
Aware or not aware, Biden is sweeping the primaries. The voters decide.
Voter suppression, Mr Corley??? The largest Democratic cities in California have been sued for having voter out comes greater than 100% of the registered voters. For many years They have not cleaned rolls of the dead and voters who have moved away. They are being sued–finally. The absent voter somehow manages to vote. Vote harvesting is rampant and not illegal…Dems go from voter to voter and mark ballots for them or promise to mail the ballots for them. Reps simply want people to show an ID card for in person voting and no same day registration,or motor voter registrations. Signature checks on ballots compared with registration forms should be a regular practice and no attempt to lower the voting age. .
Work for the Koch network, April?
Would you, Ms. Featherkile, care to grace the assertions with evidence a bit more substantial than “My friend worked at the polls in Dem. CA and she says…”? Because that really isn’t valid and renders your entire argument pretty much null.
Care to try again?
“these” (or even better, “your”) assertions, rather.
Well, my friend (Zygmunt Kowalski) has also worked for the Poles in Dem CA and my friend says your friend is full of nawóz.
So there.
Why now? Because Randi Weingarten is in bed with the Establishment.
Reportedly (leaked e-mails) Randi volunteered in 2016 to be an attack dog against the Nurses Union when it supported Bernie.
The AFT should replace its leadership with someone with the morality of the Nurses Union and someone who believes in elections based on a democratic process.
Yes, indeed, Linda. The Nurses Union is proving to be an organization that should be an inspiration, and they are in a similar position to teachers. They do not control the certification process for their own profession, They provide a technical service people value, they are majority female and they are up against corporate control of their employment. Given the recent success of nurses unions, perhaps teachers unions need to emulate them a bit more closely.
Linda wrote: “Reportedly (leaked e-mails) Randi volunteered in 2016 to be an attack dog against the Nurses Union when it supported Bernie.”
Why does it matter what a “leaked e-mail” that you have no idea what the context is says?
If Randi volunteered to be an attack dog, then it should be very easy to find an example of Randi acting like an attack dog in 2016 against the Nurses Union. Did she act like an attack dog? That is an easy yes or no question to answer.
Did Randi ever say anything critical or in the “attack dog” mode against the Nurses Union in 2016 when it supported Bernie?
It’s an easy question. Either Randi bashed the Nurses Union publicly or she didn’t in 2016. Yes or no, did she do that?
It is astonishing that Trump can actually do totally corrupt actions and he is exonerated because there is no e-mail that says “I’m taking this action in order to commit a crime.”
But attacks on anyone who is a Democrat are about something that was supposedly said in an e-mail that never happened.
Can you imagine if you, as a non-Republican, had all your texts and e-mails perused and if you ever said “I really want to leave my car illegally parked overnight”, you were automatically forced to pay a $5,000 fine even if you did NOT leave your car illegally parked overnight, but because you SAID you wanted to in an e-mail that means you are guilty and must pay the fine.
But any Republican who actually leaves his car overnight in an illegally parked spot gets no fine unless there is an e-mail that says “I plan to leave my car parked overnight”.
Because it the topsy turvy world that we now seem to live in, what matters is not what you actually do, but if you once said something that could be taken out of context in an e-mail that “proves” you are a criminal even if you actually never came close to doing anything wrong. But as long as you just commit multiple crimes without writing in an e-mail that you are committing those crimes to benefit yourself financially, then you are exonerated. Because maybe you committed those crimes for a good reason. It’s not as if you committed the serious corruption of writing an e-mail without actually doing anything at all wrong. Then you definitely deserve prison for that evil email you wrote that absolutely “proves” you are a criminal.
No wonder our country is going down the tubes fast.
Orwellian.
A threat to kill someone doesn’t require action to be a crime. Shouting fire in a crowded theater doesn’t require arson to be a crime. But, we aren’t talking about legal action.
If I didn’t have, in my head (or heart) a sentiment, I wouldn’t write it in a message and then send it.
The Russians shouldn’t have hacked and released the e-mails so that they could get Trump elected.
Two unions representing women shouldn’t have one its leaders disparaging the members of the other for supporting a candidate that clearly was a stronger advocate for workers than CAP has ever been.
NYC
Did you borrow your argument from the Republican defense during the impeachment? The Ukrainians ultimately got their funding so, Trump couldn’t have bribed them to investigate Biden’s son.
Linda,
“Two unions representing women shouldn’t have one its leaders disparaging the members of the other for supporting a candidate that clearly was a stronger advocate for workers than CAP has ever been.”
I thought I asked a reasonable question:
What did Randi Weingarten do to publicly attack the Nurses Union during the 2016 campaign?
If your answer is “nothing, but there was a private e-mail where she supposedly offered to do something that she never did”, then that seems like a truly unreasonable attack. Venting about something that annoys you is not a “crime” and in your scenario, the evil Randi’s vent is a crime that apparently she only was prevented from committing because the upright and honorable DNC and HRC prevented her from doing so! Otherwise, Randi clearly would have spent her time bashing the Nurses Union, right? That was her evil heart’s desire, as we know because of a fragment of an e-mail is absolute proof that was her heart’s desire.
There are reasonable attacks and there are unreasonable attacks. If Randi actually did something to bash the Nurses Union, then that is a good thing to bring up.
But if there is absolutely nothing you can point to that Randi did to publicly attack the Nurses Union as “punishment” except a fragment of an e-mail where she supposed offers to do so but the DNC and HRC were so upright and honorable that they soundly rejected her suggestion, then that is really clutching at straws.
Look, I’m happy to have the public despise the entire teachers union and I am happy to push your innuendo that Randi Weingarten and the evil and corrupt union teachers who are responsible for putting her in power need to be destroyed.
Let’s get everyone to hate the union! It’s corrupt! Randi had secret plans to destroy the nurses union and even though she never did anything, those secret plans prove that the evil teachers union needs to be stopped now. That will punish those evil and corrupt union teachers who are entirely responsible for empowering the evil and erupt Randi Weingarten.
No worries, I am certain that a progressive union will arise once the right wing union hating politicians have totally destroyed the current corrupt and evil teachers union.
They agree with you that the entire teachers union is a corrupt entity that needs to be destroyed since it keeps doing corrupt things and the union teachers are responsible. (Parents certainly didn’t vote for the evil and corrupt Randi and you certainly are convincing me to hate the union for being so corrupt).
As a retired member of AFT this bothers me . Biden is a Obama clone and Obama wasn’t aa friend of education. I bet they didn’t poll the membership but instead the leadership went ahead and endorsed Biden. Shame on them.
Weingarten may very well have polled spoke of the Union membership, but the devil is in the details.
Even if one knows how to do a proper poll, getting reliable results is very difficult.
So the obvious questions are Who did the polling? How were the questions phrased? How was the polling done? (Eg, online, by phone, by mail?) if the entire membership was not polled, how was the sample chosen? Was it random as it needs to be for a valid result? Who and how many responded and how did they respond? What was the margin of error?
Inquiring minds want — indeed need — to know the details.
Polls are NOT something that some Joe or Josephine with no experience can just throw together in an afternoon, at least not if they are to have any validity and reliability.
Transparency requires that those sorts of details be made available so that people can decide for themselves whether to trust the results.
And in the absence of such details, people should NOT trust the results because there are just too many ways things can go wrong.
When I asked “Who and how many responded and how did they respond”
It should have been How many responded?
Who is not something one needs to know.
How did they respond refers to things like whether they visited a website and input their response or whether they mailed in a survey, etc.
In the case of online response, one has to be very careful about multiple responses from a single source, of course.
And one also has to have some way of ensuring that those who responded are actually AFT members.
As I indicated above, polling is not a project for the weekend warrior.
Same Dam,
Why not ask a random sample of members if they were polled? If few or none report that they were invited to participate, wouldn’t this expose the sham?
Then, would any union leader pay for such misrepresentation?
It is possible just by chance that the random sample one chose to ask “were you polled?” would not overlap (significantly or at all) with the sample used for the poll (assuming all AFT members were not polled). The smaller the samples were, the more likely that would be to occur.
And actually, the best way to assess the validity and reliability of the poll is simply by knowing the details about it. Any legitimate pollster would reveal such details and it’s a very easy thing for them to do, at any rate. They would certainly have no reason not to release the details. In fact, all legitimate polling results are always accompanied by such details.
In a case like this, it would have been wise to hire a reputable professional pollster, but I honestly have no idea whether that was done.
As you noted, rate of return is critical. Transparency, always vital but usually given no more than lip service. A legitimate process would have required an independent auditing firm to administer the survey, receive responses and report findings. And also as you said, wording and sequencing of questions impact results.
If I were a member of AFT, I would ask for the details.
Whether the details were forthcoming or not, such a request would tell me whether to trust the results.
Somedamn…
I share your chagrin. Any ‘poll’ that fails to describe the way the sample was gathered and reports ‘results’ without a legitimate error estimate is worthless as a decision-making tool.
Now, as a money raiser, that’s another story. Polls can collect data on you and then sell it to someone else in order to make money. Or, ‘polls’ can give the appearance of validity to an invalid position by ‘using numbers’ , that also works (apparently). Seems the latter was probably why ‘polls’ were mentioned in this case.
Randi’s in the same camp as the co-hosts of ABC’s The View- rich people from the right and left backing Biden against the other candidate, Trump, who happens to also be backed by rich people.
“It’s the basic intellectual dynamic of parasitism. In nature, parasites don’t simply attach themselves to a host and suck out blood, or take the surplus in an economy. In order to do that, they have to numb the host. They need an anesthetic so that the host doesn’t realize it’s being bitten. Then, biological parasites in nature have an enzyme that they use to take over the brain. The brain of the host is tricked into thinking that the parasite is a part of its body, to be protected.”
It’s not about reality.” It’s about the internal consistency of assumptions. It’s to build a beautiful system that, if it really worked, would be so appealing that students will be willing to suspend disbelief. That is what a good science fiction writer would do. The trick is to make readers willing to accept the assumptions that they’re given at the outset.”
ELECTORAL-SAVIORtunnel vision is simply about the logical consistency of unrealistic assumptions.
Step right up.
Vote for me and I’ll set you free…as if the results aren’t proof of the spoof.
No matter WHO loses the election, MONEY always wins.
.
I LOVE your analogy. People, please pay attention to this.
I hope you continue to expand this by thinking about the details of the numbing (Shock Doctrine, media, etc.), perhaps “right brain-left brain” connections or (kinda the same thing) linking it to inductive/deductive logic. I’ll be looking for your new book.
Some of the comments about the AFT remind me a lot of the kinds of comments I read regarding the DNC.
The AFT is corrupt and evil, just like the DNC. That simply makes the public believe that they should refuse to support the teachers union under any circumstances, just like we should refuse to support the Democrats under any circumstances.
To “save” the union, we should make sure to empower the people who want to totally destroy it by making those in the public who otherwise might support the teachers union believe that it is one of the most corrupt entities in the country and should be destroyed.
Right?
The “evil” AFT is preventing “good” progressive union leaders from winning elections by corrupt and evil practices so the union can never be anything but corrupt. Let’s destroy the union and empower the people who want to destroy it. Once the union is totally destroyed and the right wing republicans who hate unions are completely empowered, we can be sure that a progressive union will rise from the ashes.
The way to get to a more progressive union is to bash the teachers’ union as evil and corrupt at every single opportunity and make sure the American voter associates the teachers unions with evil and corruption and everything that is so bad that even a right wing Republican is better.
The way to insure a more progressive union is to make sure the public hates the “corrupt and evil” teachers’ union as much as the “corrupt and evil” DNC.
Right?
As a parent, it boggles my mind that so many teachers could elect union officials who represent everything the teachers hate. Ergo, why should we support any unions at all?
Clearly the AFT runs corrupt elections and thus Randi Weingarten wins and prevents progressive leaders from winning by cheating and “stealing” the election from progressive leaders.
Ergo, let’s all bash the teachers union non-stop and talk about how corrupt the union is.
Because that worked so well with the Democrats. Having Trump is really making our progressive future come a lot faster just like the people who said the Democrats were evil said it would.
And making the public believe the teachers union is really corrupt and evil will certainly bring about a really nice progressive future for teachers.
Right?
FYI – there is legitimate criticism of Randi Weingarten, and there is the type of anti-union propaganda spewed by people who don’t mind at all if the union is destroyed in order to “save” it. The same is true about the Democratic party. When bashing involves talking about how corrupt and evil the entire union is, it just makes parents and the rest of the public hate all the teachers’ unions period. Just like so many hate all Democrats, period.
Is that really what willl “save” the union? I doubt it.
I understand the AFT endorsement. Bernie can’t win the nomination. He would have to win 2/3 of all remaining delegates in states that he didn’t win in 2016. Reality strikes.
In that case, Diane, there’s no need for the AFT to endorse anybody until after the Convention.
True.
This.
I don’t think that Biden will make it to the convention. The DNC will manipulate the situation and force another candidate through like they did Biden. Unfortunately, nothing will change for the working or middle class. Bernie Sanders has the right ideas, but corporations run this country so we’ll continue on this path.
In elections, voters decide.
Biden was out of money. He did not buy votes.
African American voters propelled his campaign and resuscitated it from the dead.
When Trump directed the message, “What have you got to lose?” to the black population, did the establishment Dems.’ campaign staff return volley? The answer may explain the poor poll numbers in the black community.
After the election, CAP added a black person to its education policy group.
We’ll see which demographic group Biden works the hardest for and achieves the most for.
We know who Booker works for and we can speculate who Kamala Harris works for, based on her performance as a prosecutor.
That does not explain the massive black turnout for Biden, whose campaign was on life support before South Carolina.
It’s doubtful that Clyburn expects anything different under a Biden presidency than he experienced during Clinton and Obama’s presidencies.
I presume Clyburn’s campaigns are funded by the Democratic establishment.