Thom Hartmann is very clear about two points in this excellent essay:

1. Political violence is always wrong. No one should be murdered because of their views.
2. Both parties are not equally to blame. Republicans, not Democrats, have stoked the flames of extremism and violence.

He writes:

As a guy who regularly gets death threats because of my media presence, I shouldn’t have to say that killing people — or even threatening them — for their politics is wrong. But here it is, for the record: nobody in America should die for their politics. 

That said, in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination — the guy who downplayed slavery, demonized Black and brown people, promoted the racist antisemitic Great Replacement Theory, attacked queer people, made degrading comments about women, said gun deaths were fine because that’s the price we must pay for the Second Amendment — the media is afraid to say anything about the state of our politics other than “we need to stop violence-provoking political rhetoric on both sides.” 

As if there were two sides here.

Here’s the hard truth that the bullshit-embracing “both sides” punditry won’t say out loud: calling for Democrats to “tone it down” has become a permission slip for Republicans to keep stoking hate, flirting with violence, and treating fellow Americans as enemies rather than opponents. 

That an alleged leftie shot Kirk is the exception that proves the rule.

If you actually look at the political science and the public record, the escalation didn’t start with Democrats, and it doesn’t continue because Democrats use accurate words to describe what we’re facing. The political research is clear.

As Rachel Bitecofer points out, Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein said the quiet part our loud when they wrote that the modern GOP had become “ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition” in their 2012 Washington Post essay and book-length work on asymmetric polarization. 

And this isn’t new: the rhetoric that got us here wasn’t even invented on social media. Lee Atwater explained Nixon’s Southern Strategy out loud in 1981, describing how race-baiting messages were laundered into “abstract” appeals that produced the same results without resorting to the N-word.

Ronald Reagan elevated the “welfare queen” trope into a national morality play that exploited poverty and race for partisan gain. The Willie Horton ad and “Revolving Door” spot baked fear-first politics into a Republican presidential campaign’s core strategy.

Pat Buchanan then said the quiet part with a bullhorn in his 1992 convention speech, declaringa “culture war” against Democrats and anyone who didn’t fit his vision of a Christian white America. Newt Gingrich operationalized it with his GOPAC training memo, a how-to guide that told Republican candidates to brand Democrats with words like “corrupt,” “sick,” and “traitors” while reserving terms like “freedom” and “strength” for themselves. 

This wasn’t an internet rumor, it was the Republican party’s official training literature.

When the National Rifle Association mailed a fundraising letter in 1995 calling federal agents “jack-booted thugs,” former President George H. W. Bush resigned from their board in protest, which tells you how far the mainstream right still had to travel to normalize incendiary attacks on law enforcement when it suited their politics.

Fast forward to the past decade and the escalation didn’t slow.

Republicans have long normalized calling Democrats “socialists” or “communists” as a baseline insult rather than an argument. This isn’t a fringe habit, it’s a standard applause line for Republican leaders and conservative media outlets. 

The “Second Amendment” wink-and-nod-endorsing-violence politics isn’t new either; Sharron Angle campaigned on “Second Amendment remedies” in 2010 and Donald Trump suggested in 2016 that the “Second Amendment people” might have to step up to stop Hillary Clinton.

With Trump’s 2016 campaign, the glorification of violence moved from innuendo to stagecraft. He urged rallygoers to “knock the crap out of” protesters, then later told police “please don’t be too nice” to suspects during a Long Island speech.

Armed rightwing extremists swarmed the Michigan Capitol in April 2020, a preview of how “we the people” could be recast as a threat display when public health or election results didn’t go the way Republicans wanted. 

Republican Congressman Paul Gosar posted an anime video that depicted violence against AOC and President Biden, which isn’t normal in an advanced democracy; nonetheless all but two Republicans refused to vote for his censure.

The GOP’s information pipeline supercharged moral panics about identity and belonging; the old birther lie about Barack Obama’s citizenship migrated from fringe to Fox to Trump’s core brand.

Then the “Great Replacement” narrative went from white supremacist fever dream to a standard talking point on the country’s most-watched rightwing channel, and then into the manifestos of mass murderers in El Paso and Buffalo, and into the antisemitic rantings of the Tree of Life shooter who blamed Jews for “bringing invaders” here. 

After Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law, the “groomer” slur against queer people explodedby more than 400% because political entrepreneurs like Kirk realized how quickly a smear can mobilize fear and clicks in the current media economy.

Republican officials and aligned media also popularized the false frame that gender-affirming care equals “genital mutilation,” a homophobic slur Kirk kept using that’s been rejected on the record by federal judges examining the facts in these cases.

This is the ecosystem that produced a presidential debate moment in which Trump told the racist Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” and a January 6th rally where he urged supporters to “fight like hell.” The RNC later tried to rebrand the attack as “legitimate political discourse,” which was an explicit signal to their base that political violence is just fine with the GOP.

The Department of Justice charged more than 1,500 people in connection with the attack on the Capitol, including hundreds for assaulting police officers (three of whom died as a result): Trump then pardoned them all, explaining again by his action (and the failure of any Republicans to condemn it) that political violence is just fine with today’s GOP.

Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two election workers falsely smeared by Trump’s lawyer, won a landmark defamation verdict because Republican threats to public servants are real, not rhetorical flourishes.

When critics talk about authoritarian drift, they aren’t making it up for cable hits. Trump created “Schedule F” by executive order in 2020 to strip job protections from large categories of civil servants; President Biden revoked it, but now it’s back, leading to a dangerous politicization of the federal bureaucracy that’s now hunting and purging “lefties” the way slave patrolers once tracked down escapees. 

Alongside that, Trump has publicly urged defunding or punishing the FBI and DOJ when they investigate him, and even floated “terminating” parts of the Constitution, which is rhetoric that would have ended careers a generation ago and now earns a shrug from most of his party’s elected officials.

And, as Jessica Valenti points out: 

“[W]hen a pregnant woman dies of sepsis in a hospital that could have helped her but is legally prevented from doing so, that’s political violence. It’s political violence when a child is shot in their classroom because lawmakers refuse to take action on guns. An abortion provider being assassinated after years of conservatives calling them ‘baby-killers’ is political violence, as is the death of a person who had their medical claim denied by companies more interested in their bottom line than people’s lives.”

And now, in the wake of Kirk’s murder, Republicans are again amping up the violent rhetoric. Laura Loomer just posted, “More people will be murdered if the Left isn’t crushed with the power of the state.” Trump referenced “radical left political violence” as if that’s the only source of it.

Sean Davis, the CEO of The Federalist, wrote, “When Democrats lose elections they couldn’t steal, they murder the people they were unable to defeat.” Fox Host Jesse Waters said, “Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us.” Mother Jones compiled a more comprehensive list of Republican calls for violence against Democrats. 

Trump made jokes about Paul Pelosi’s near-murder, and laughed when a thuggish congressional candidate assaulted a reporter for asking him a question about health care policy; that thug is now governor of Montana. 

And let’s not forget Charlie Kirk’s hero, Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two people and blew most of the arm off a third; Trump invited him to Mar-a-Largo to congratulate him. 

Violence is their brand. 

And in the wake of all this, Trump pulls the Secret Service security detail from Kamala Harris just as she begins her book tour. 

Now put that record next to what Democrats have done.

I realize it makes them sound like wimps, but instead of vilifying their opposition Democrats in Congress have been working across the aisle for the average person, passing healthcare legislation, trying to strengthen voting rights, reduce student debt, clean up the environment, rebuild our infrastructure and kick-start chip manufacturing, and hold corporate criminals to account. 

After Democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered by a rightwinger with a list of almost 50 other Democrats he planned to kill, Trump refused to even call Governor Walz, much less lower flags to half-staff. Democrats, who’d lost a genuine hero, universally called for toning down political rhetoric instead of vengeance or retributive violence. 

While the GOP’s brand is “We’re victims!!!,” Democrats are more interested in getting things done for the people. And when they do call out the authoritarianism of this administration, they’re pointing to actual policies like masked secret police, military in the streets, Trump grifting billions in crypto, using the FBI to go after his political opponents, and Republicans on the Supreme Court giving Trump immunity from prosecution for actual crimes.

On top of passing legislation, Democratic leaders have consistently condemned political violence without caveat, from Joe Biden’s 2020 speechspelling out that “rioting is not protesting” to repeated condemnations after attacks on public officials and public servants.

So when commentators ask both parties to “lower the temperature,” we should be honest about what that means in practice.

Too often, it’s a request for Democrats to stop calling out the very real way the modern right has mainstreamed eliminationist rhetoric, moral-panic politics, and procedural hardball. 

It is a call to pretend that saying “you’re child-abusing communists who hate America” versus “you’re undermining democracy and endangering people with lies” are mirror images. 

They are not.

One is a smear that licenses political violence. The other is a description of a documented pattern of behavior with decades of receipts.

None of that means Democrats are perfect. It means Democrats are operating inside the reality-based world where deals must be made, bills must be passed, and violence is condemned when it appears on your own side.

Former Republican George Conway warns that the GOP is on the verge of turning Kirk into Horst Wessel, the Nazi streetfighter who Hitler made into a martyr when he was killed. He posted:

“They may not want to hear it, and it may incense them, but the parallels between what the Nazis did then, and what Trump and MAGA are doing today, are striking, chilling—and as any expert on authoritarianism will tell you, straight out of the same toxic, but dog-eared, playbook.” 

Jim Stewartson suggests Kirk’s killing could be used by Trump the way Hitler used the Reichstag Fire to change German law and give himself unlimited power. 

These are indeed very, very dangerous times. And the political rhetoric coming out of 1500 rightwing hate-radio stations, Republican politicians, and billionaire-funded hard-right-biased-social-media-algorithms is at the center of the crisis. 

If Republicans want the volume to come down, the path is simple.

— Stop labeling mainstream opponents as “communists” and “groomers.” 
— Stop flirting with “Second Amendment remedies.” 
— Stop normalizing threats against election workers. 
— Stop trying to bend the machinery of government to punish critics and shield allies. 

When that happens, Democrats will meet them in the middle, because Democrats already live there when they write bipartisan infrastructure bills, subsidize domestic chip manufacturing, narrow gun loopholes, and harden the legal process for counting electoral votes. 

Until then, asking Democrats to “watch their tone” is not a plan for peace: it’s a plan for unilateral disarmament in a fight the other side first chose.

Our media must call the problem what it is, or we’ll never fix it. The people who lit this fire keep tossing gasoline on it. The only way to put it out is to stop pretending the arsonists and the firefighters are the same.

Trump announced that he will bring back prayer in the schools. This is a prize for his Christian nationalist base, who want the nation to be a theological, Bible-based state.

Trump recently appeared at the Museum of the Bible (who knew?) where he made clear his plans.

This is alarming but also amusing. Trump is probably the least religious man ever elected President. Sunday mornings, he is on the golf course, not in church. He has violated every one of the Ten Commandments.

Politico reported:

President Donald Trump on Monday said that the Department of Education would soon be instituting new guidelines on the right to prayer in public schools.

Speaking from an event at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, Trump said there are “grave threats to religious liberty in American schools.”

“For most of our country’s history, the Bible was found in every classroom in the nation, yet in many schools today students are instead indoctrinated with anti-religious propaganda and some are punished for their religious beliefs. Very, very strongly punished,” Trump said. “It is ridiculous.”

Trump did not detail what the new guidance will include, but during the 2024 campaign he promised to “bring back prayer” to public schools.

In a statement to POLITICO, Savannah Newhouse, press secretary for the Education Department said, “The Department of Education looks forward to supporting President Trump’s vision to promote religious liberty in our schools across the country.” 

While religion is not banned in public schools, the Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that state-sponsored prayer in public schools violates the First Amendment.

It’s important these days to remember that public schools were created by communities, districts, and states to serve all children and to contribute to the betterment of society. As a result of demands by parents, activists, the courts, and legislators, public schools must serve all children, not just those they choose to admit.

Sidney Shapiro, a Professor of Law at Wake Forest University, and Joseph P. Romain, a Professor of Law at the University of Cinncinatti, co-authored a paper on the need for and purpose of public schools.

While the White House’s fight with elite universities such as Columbia and Harvard has recently dominated the headlines, the feud overshadows the broader and more far-reaching assault on K-12 public education by the Trump administration and many states.

The Trump administration has gutted the Department of Education, imperiling efforts to protect students’ civil rights, and proposed billions in public education cuts for fiscal year 2026. Meanwhile, the administration is diverting billions of taxpayer funds into K-12 private schools. These moves build upon similar efforts by conservative states to rein in public education going back decades.

But the consequences of withdrawing from public education could be dire for the U.S. In our 2024 book, “How Government Built America,” we explore the history of public education, from Horace Mann’s “common school movement” in the early 19th century to the GI Bill in the 20th that helped millions of veterans go to college and become homeowners after World War II.

We found that public education has been essential for not only creating an educated workforce but for inculcating the United States’ fundamental values of liberty, equality, fairness and the common good.

In the public good

Opponents of public education often refer to public schools as “government schools,” a pejorative that seems intended to associate public education with “big government” – seemingly at odds with the small government preferenceof many Americans.

But, as we have previously explored, government has always been a significant partner with the private market system in achieving the country’s fundamental political values. Public education has been an important part of that partnership.

Education is what economists call a public good, which means it not only benefits students but the country as well.

Mann, an education reformer often dubbed the father of the American public school system, argued that universal, publicly funded, nonsectarian public schools would help sustain American political institutions, expand the economy and fend off social disorder. Horace Mann was a pioneer of free public schools and Massachusetts’ first secretary of education.

In researching Mann’s common schools and other educational history for our book, two lessons stood out to us.

One is that the U.S. investment in public education over the past 150 years has created a well-educated workforce that has fueled innovation and unparalleled prosperity.

As our book documents, for example, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries the states expanded public education to include high school to meet the increasing demand for a more educated citizenry as a result of the Industrial Revolution. And the GI Bill made it possible for returning veterans to earn college degrees or train for vocations, support young families and buy homes, farms or businesses, and it encouraged them to become more engaged citizens, making “U.S. democracy more vibrant in the middle of the twentieth century.”

The other, equally significant lesson is that the democratic and republican principals that propelled Mann’s vision of the common school have colored many Americans’ assumptions about public schooling ever since. Mann’s goal was a “virtuous republican citizenry” – that is, a citizenry educated in “good citizenship, democratic participation and societal well-being.”

Mann believed there was nothing more important than “the proper training of the rising generation,” calling it the country’s “highest earthly duty.”

Attacking public education

Today, Mann’s vision and all that’s been accomplished by public education is under threat.

Trump’s second term has supercharged efforts by conservatives over the past 75 years to control what is taught in the public schools and to replace public education with private schools.

Most notably, Trump has begun dismantling the Department of Education to devolve more policymaking to the state level. The department is responsible for, among other things, distributing federal funds to public schools, protecting students’ civil rights and supporting high-quality educational research. It has also been responsible for managing over a trillion dollars in student loans – a function that the administration is moving to the Small Business Administration, which has no experience in loan management.

The president’s March 2025 executive order has slashed the department’s staff in half, with especially deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights, which, as noted, protects student from illegal discrimination.

Trump’s efforts to slash education funding has so far hit roadblocks with Congress and the public. The administration is aiming to cut education funding by US$12 billion for fiscal year 2026, which Congress is currently negotiating.

And contradicting its stance on ceding more control to states and local communities, the administration has also been mandating what can’t and must be taught in public schools. For example, it’s threatened funding for school districts that recognize transgender identities or teach about structural racism, white privilege and similar concepts. On the other hand, the White House is pushing the use of “patriotic” education that depicts the founding of the U.S. as “unifying, inspiring and ennobling.”

Promoting private education

As Trump and states have cut funding and resources to public education, they’ve been shifting more money to K-12 private schools.

Most recently, the budget bill passed by Congress in July 2025 gives taxpayers a tax credit for donations to organizations that fund private school scholarships. The credit, which unlike a deduction counts directly against how much tax someone owes, is $1,700 for individuals and double for married couples. The total cost could run into the billions, since it’s unclear how many taxpayers will take advantage.

Meanwhile, 33 states direct public money toward private schools by providing vouchers, tax credits or another form of financial assistance to parents. All together, states allocated $8.2 billion to support private school education in 2024.

Government funding of private schools diverts money away from public education and makes it more difficult for public schools to provide the quality of education that would most benefit students and the public at large. In Arizona, for example, many public schools are closing their doors permanently as a result of the state’s support for charter schools, homeschooling and private school vouchers.

That’s because public schools are funded based on how many students they have. As more students switch to private schools, there’s less money to cover teacher salaries and fixed costs such as building maintenance. Ultimately, that means fewer resources to educate the students who remain in the public school system.

Living up to aspirations

We believe the harm to the country of promoting private schools while rolling back support for public education is about more than dollars and cents.

It would mean abandoning the principle of universal, nonsectarian education for America’s children. And in so doing, Mann’s “virtuous citizenry” will be much harder to build and maintain.

America’s private market system, in which individuals are free to contract with each other with minimal government interference, has been important to building prosperity and opportunity in the U.S., as our book documents. But, as we also establish, relying on private markets to educate America’s youth makes it harder to create equal opportunity for children to learn and be economically successful, leaving the country less prosperous and more divided.

Sidney Shapiro is a Professor of Law at Wake Forest University. He is affiliated with the Center for Progressive Reform.

Joseph P. Tomain is a Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati. He does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Private and religious schools, in comparison, choose their students. They choose those who are a “good fit.” They choose their co-religionists. They may reject students for any reason. They may say they have the staff to help students with disabilities or those who don’t speak English or those who struggle with school work. The choice is theirs.

It’s a common complaint that the news media is trying so hard to be neutral that they are failing to warn the public about Trump’s efforts to make himself a fascistic emperor.

Trump has shattered norms and traditions by firing members of independent boards who were appointed to serve for a set term. He has cancelled funding authorized by Congress. He has taken control of Congress’s “power of the purse” by announcing draconian tariffs. He has bullied law firms, universities, tech giants, and the media. He ignores the law and the Constitution because no one will stop him. The Republicans who control Congress are hibernating. And they fear his base.

There is one writer who consistently writes frankly about Trump’s malfeasance: Susan B. Glasser of The New Yorker. In her latest article, she points out that federal courts have consistently rebuffed Trump’s lawlessness. The title: “How Many Court Cases Can Trump Lose in a Single Week?”

She describes “the Trump Doctrine” in blunt terms: “I can do anything I want to do.” A king? A dictator? An emperor? What other President has asserted his unlimited power to do whatever he wants? It remains to be seen, she acknowledges, whether the Supreme Court will reverse all these rulings against Trump’s overreach.

She writes:

Is Donald Trump tired yet of all the losing? During the past week alone, federal judges across the country have rejected some of the most important and far-reaching of Trump’s initiatives—from his efforts to reshape the global economy with tariffs and mobilize the military to act as police in American cities to his refusal to spend billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated funds. The President continues to cite nonexistent emergencies to justify his executive overreach and judges continue to call him out on it, issuing stern rebukes in the tradition of Judge Beryl Howell, who, during a case this spring about the firings of civil servants, observed that “an American President is not a king—not even an ‘elected’ one.”

I’m not sure that this week’s epic losing streak has received the attention that it deserves, no doubt in part because America had other things to worry about, such as whether Trump was actually alive, despite all the internet rumors. It speaks to the present moment that the President is not only very much still with us but has already started fund-raising off the social-media frenzy surrounding his supposed death over Labor Day weekend. (“These rumors are just another desperate attack from the failing left who can’t stand that we’re WINNING and bigly!” the e-mail pitch that arrived in my inbox on Thursday morning said.) But what does it say about the state of things that disputing rumors of his death turns out to be a welcome distraction from underlying political realities for Trump?…

The latest string of defeats began last Friday, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs imposing double-digit duties on key trading partners such as Canada, China, and the European Union were illegal. Over the holiday weekend, a federal district judge intervened to stop migrant children from being deported to Guatemala while some of them were already loaded on planes. On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reinstated a Federal Trade Commissioner, saying that Trump did not have the power that he claimed to fire her. Also that day, another federal judge ruled that, in sending hundreds of National Guard personnel to Los Angeles amid protests of Trump’s immigration crackdown, the President had violated a nineteenth-century law prohibiting the use of troops for domestic law-enforcement purposes. On Wednesday, yet another judge, in Boston, rejected billions of dollars in cuts to research funding for Harvard University, part of a broad war on liberal academia that Trump has made an unlikely centerpiece of his second term. And late on Wednesday night, a federal judge in Washington blocked billions of dollars in Trump-ordered cuts to foreign aid, saying that he was usurping Congress’s power of the purse in refusing to spend the money. This, I should add, is an incomplete list. If nothing else, it shows the extraordinary scope and scale of the battles that Trump has chosen to pursue—suggesting not so much a strategic view of the Presidency as an everything-everywhere-all-at-once vision of unchecked Presidential power.

It’s refreshing to read Glasser. She’s not shrill. She’s not ideological. She’s not afraid.

Greg Olear lays out the frightening parallels between the rise of Hitler and the rise of Trump, quoting from a book written by a German author. The article is longer that what I posted here. Please open the link to read it all. There is no paywall.

I. The United States: A Survey

In just a few months, a coarse, artless, criminal strongman has taken control of the entire federal government—including, as of yesterday, the nation’s capital (or “Capital,” as he writes it, capitalizing his nouns like a good German).

Trump owns the Supreme Court, the Republican Party, the Speaker of the House. Congress is powerless to stop him. The wealthiest tech-bros in Silicon Valley and most of the legacy media CEOs have lined up behind him. Colleges and universities have capitulated to his demands, as have white-shoe law firms and venerable broadcasting companies. He’s transformed U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement into his own secret state police. He’s using the FBI and the Justice Department to attack his enemies. He’s building concentration camps. He’s enriching himself on a grand scale. And every word that comes out of his puckered little mouth is a lie.

How did this happen? 

While on vacation in Barcelona, I came across the most cogent explanation I’ve yet encountered. It was written, appropriately, by a German—a brilliant journalist named Sebastian Haffner. Here is an excerpt:

At rally after rally all through the summer and fall of 2024, Trump bellowed that he would win—his supporters didn’t even have to vote, because he had Elon’s help—and then heads would roll. Nothing happened. The white-haired attorney general did not think of changing his strategy, insisting instead on the preservation of “norms.” In the presidential election against Joe Biden, Trump had declared that victory was his, in any case. Nothing happened. When he said it again at his next rally, the audience tittered, as if it had been tickled. The House invested considerable time and energy investigating the coup attempt of January 6th, in which his supporters besieged the Capitol and policemen were killed, and concluded that Trump was responsible. Nothing happened. No, something did happen: the insurrectionists were pardoned.

It was strange to observe how the behavior of each side reinforced that of the other: the savage impudence that gradually made it possible for the unpleasant orange apostle of hate to assume the proportions of a demon; the bafflement of his tamers, who always realized just too late exactly what it was he was up to—namely, when he capped it with something even more outrageous and monstrous; then, also, the hypnotic trance into which his public fell, succumbing with less and less resistance to the glamour of depravity and the ecstasy of evil. 

Besides, he promised everything to everybody, which naturally brought him a vast, loose army of followers and voters from among the ignorant, the disappointed, and the dispossessed.

Spot on, right?

Here’s the twist: Haffner wrote that in 1939—before the Nazis invaded Poland. He was reflecting on how the “unpleasant little apostle of hate”—I swapped “orange” for “little”—had come to power: how Hitler had bamboozled the German people into voting away their freedom, and how the German people had failed to meet the moment.

Obviously I modified the first paragraph to serve my rhetorical purposes, but the spirit of the original is unchanged: a loud, hateful psychopath keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, no one in a position of authority stops him, and the unthinkable comes true. This is what Haffner actually wrote:

Summoned as a witness before the highest German court, Hitler bellowed at the judges that he would one day come to power by strictly constitutional means and then heads would roll. Nothing happened. The white-haired president of the supreme court did not think of ordering the witness to be taken into custody for contempt. In the presidential elections against Hindenburg, Hitler declared that victory was his, in any case. His opponent was eighty-five, he was forty-three; he could wait. Nothing happened. When he said it again at his next meeting, the audience tittered, as if it had been tickled. One night, six storm troopers fell on a “dissident” in his bed and literally trampled him to death, for which they were sentenced to death. Hitler sent them a telegram of praise and acknowledgment. Nothing happened. No, something did happen: the murderers were pardoned.

The parallels are as obvious as they are disturbing.

---

Haffner—the pen name of Raimund Pretzel—was born in Berlin in 1907, the son of a Prussian government official. As a boy, he thrilled to the exploits of the Kaiser’s army during the Great War, like most of his contemporaries. He was not particularly “political.” He did not care for the Communists; if anything, he was more “right” than “left.” But he loathed Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. He realized early on, in the years after the First World War, that political zealotry in Berlin was the province of “the more stupid, coarse, and unpleasant among my schoolfellows”—and all of those young, dumb bullies bought what the creepy watercolorist from Linz was selling. Haffner himself was “Aryan,” but he had a lot of Jewish friends, including his then-girlfriend, and he was morally outraged at the disgusting anti-Semitism of the Nazi Party.

As the situation grew more dire, Haffner fled Berlin, first to Paris, then to London, where, in 1939, he began a memoir—an account of how the Nazis had come to power. Unlike other works of this kind, his book is not an examination of what Hitler did, but rather how the German people, especially the ones who should have known better, reacted and responded to what Hitler did. He makes the case that his experience, as an individual German citizen living through the rise of the Third Reich, reflected the experience of hundreds of thousands of German citizens—the majority of whom, after all, had notvoted for the Nazis. The book is a chronicle of the political zeitgeist. It tracks the evolution of the emotions, the feelings, the vibes of the German nation, and explicates how and why Adolf Hitler, of all people, this nebbishy little weirdo, became not only chancellor but führer.

Published in German as Germany: A Survey, in English, the memoir is called Defying Hitler—a poor title, as it isn’t representative of the contents (there is not much defying of Hitler going on); plus, functionally, having HITLER emblazoned on the cover of a book makes it awkward to read at the airport.

Haffner abandoned the project in 1939, after the war started, “presumably because its theme is the question of how it was possible for the Nazis to come to power,” as his son and (wonderful) translator, Oliver Pretzel, explains in the introduction. “Instead he started another one, whose subject was the more urgent question of how to deal with Nazi Germany.”

The manuscript sat unread in a filing cabinet for decades. It was only published in 2001, two years after Haffner’s death, becoming a best-seller in Germany. While his original plan for A Survey was to chronicle his experiences through his emigration to England in 1938, he doesn’t get nearly that far. The action breaks off in 1933. I would have loved for it to continue—it feels like if Andor hadn’t come back for the second season—but he gives us more than enough insight to make his point.

Nineteen thirty-three was the crucial year in which Hitler and the Nazis established their power. It’s helpful, in the U.S. of 2025, to focus just on the events of that year. Here is a quick timeline:

January 30, 1933
The moribund president, Hindenburg—a “traitor,” Haffner rightly calls him—appoints Hitler as chancellor. Nazis are now in charge of Germany.

February 27, 1933
The Reichstag Fire—a “false flag” act of terrorism blamed on the rival Communists and used as a pretext for Hitler to crack down on his political opponents.

March 5, 1933
In the last free elections, the Nazis garner 43.9 percent of the popular vote—but exploit the parliamentary system and the feckless leaders of the German Nationalist People’s Party to remain in control.

March 22, 1933
The first concentration camp is established at Dachau, where dissidents and political opponents of the Nazis are sent after their arrests.

March 23, 1933
The Enabling Act grants Hitler dictatorial powers.

April 1, 1933
The Nazis impose a national boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. This kicks off an incremental process of barring German Jews from the civil service, the legal profession, the armed forces, the arts, agriculture, journalism, and so on.

April 26, 1933
The Gestapo—a truncation of Geheime Staatspolizei; literally the secret state police—is established.

As you can see—and as any American paying attention to the news these days can attest—it does not take that long for a stubborn and dedicated strongman, however ridiculous he may appear, to acquire fearsome authoritarian powers.

Defying Hitler is jawdroppingly good: as a piece of writing, as a personal memoir, as a social history, as a political analysis. And it is eerily, uncomfortably, shockingly current. I lost track of how many times I gasped out loud as I was reading, noting the unpleasant similarities between Germany in 1933 and the U.S. right now. Insofar as Trump has modeled himself on Hitler, and MAGA on the Nazi Party, the book is instructive—terrifying, to be sure, but not unhopeful.

Because of the ticking-time-bomb urgency, I’m going to quote from the book at length in this two-part piece, and hope that Mr. Pretzel does not object. With that said, I urge everyone to buy Defying Hitler and read it. Haffner’s memoir is beautifully written, short, fascinating, and not as depressing as the subject matter suggests. His disappointment and disgust with his countrymen feels very familiar. Defying Hitler is the single most important work I’ve come across, in terms of understanding the here and now.

There are, to reiterate, an alarming number of parallels between Germany in 1933 and the United States today. But there are also subtle differences, which, I believe, and which I hope, augur a better future here now than there then. The key difference, of course, as I’ve said many times on various broadcasts, is that the Germans of 1933 did not have the benefit of knowing what happened in Germany in 1933. They were caught blindsided. We have no such excuse.

Especially given this historical hindsight, it is both shameful and depressing that Donald Trump was elected a second time. But the historical precedent for such national stupidity still exists, as Haffner shows.

Mike DeGuire, veteran educator in Denver, fears that billionaires are paying the bills for a phony reform group that’s trying to buy the Denver school board. The billionaires find Denver an enticing target because its leading public officials are DFER Democrats: Michael Bennett is a Colorado Senator and a big supporter of charter schools when he was Denver’s Superintendent of Schools; Governor Jared Polis opened charter schools and is a charter cheerleader; Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a former TFA and state legislator, loves charters and evaluating teachers by their students’ test scores (he sponsored legislation to make teacher evaluation-by-value-added-scores state law).

Please note that the Dark Money groups use names intended to fool the public into thinking they represent parents and families. They don’t.

DeGuire wrote in Colorado Newsline:

School board elections in Denver have become increasingly expensive, and the outcomes often hinge on the amount of money spent by competing groups. According to Chalkbeat, “In Denver Public Schools politics, pro-charter organizations like Denver Families Action are on one side and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association union is on the other.”

In the 2023 Denver Public Schools school board race, Denver Families Action spent nearly $1 million through its independent expenditure committee Better Leaders Stronger Schools, outspending “the Denver teachers’ union 5 to 1.” That election nearly tied the record for all-time spending in a DPS school board race at $2.2 million. For the first time, Denver Families Action also paid for TV ads with dark money that featured Denver Mayor Mike Johnstonsupporting their endorsed candidates.

The money paid off, and all three won.

The Denver Classrooms Teachers Association is rooted in a local, democratic labor process since its funding comes from nearly 4,000 educators. 

Denver Families Action, however, is the “political arm” of Denver Families for Public Schools, an organization whose name might suggest local representation yet it is funded by billionaire donors from outside Denver.

The near-historic spending by Denver Families Action in 2023 has its roots in a national strategy spearheaded by billionaires Reed Hastings and John Arnold. In 2018, a leaked presentation described how their new organization, City Fund, planned to invest $200 million to “increase charter school representation up to 50% in over 40 cities.” Denver has been one of their prime targets. 

City Fund’s investment highlighted the DPS “portfolio model” which closes or replaces neighborhood schools that fail to meet standardized test-score benchmarks and then reopens them as charter schools. Since implementing the portfolio model in 2007, DPS closed or replaced dozens of neighborhood schools. Today, DPS has more than 50 charters. The model also weakens union influence“by reducing the number of schools whose teachers belong to the union, diminishing the union’s membership — and thus its power and its money.”  

City Fund’s strategy has met with some resistance. In 2021, school board members from six cities criticized City Fund and their locally funded “activist groups” writing they “present themselves as local grassroots organizations when nothing could be further from the truth.” They warned that the billionaire-driven privatization erodes local control, divides school districts, and undermines democratic ideals.

Denver’s experience reflects similar concerns. In Denver, financial backing from wealthy advocates of charter schools ensured that pro-charter school board members dominated the board for over a decade. But in 2019, three teacher union-backed candidates unexpectedly won. This raised alarm among charter school advocates who worried the new board might dismantle past reforms, and ongoing enrollment declines also raised concerns.

In response to these events, City Fund helped launch Denver Families for Public Schools with backing from four Denver charter networks: DSST, STRIVE Prep, Rocky Mountain Prep, and University Prep. DFPS’s executive director, Ray Rivera, acknowledged their goal was to elevate the “voices of families who attend these charter schools in Denver and making sure they’re part of the public policy that gets made.” 

DFPS received nearly $4 million from City Fund’s political arm, Campaign for Great Public Schools, and in 2024, they merged with another activist group, RootED, which had received over $34 millionfrom City Fund for charter expansion and grants to community organizations. Their combined resources now total about $8 million, allowing DFPS to hire staff, fund charter schools and community groups, pay canvassers up to $36 an hour, and organize advocacy campaigns to elect pro-charter candidates.

DFPS is led by Pat Donovan, the former managing partner with RootEd, who also chairs the board of Rocky Mountain Prep, a charter network with twelve DPS schools. In addition, Donovan serves on the boards of the Colorado League of Charter Schoolsand KIPP Colorado. City Fund CEO Marlon Marshall also serves on the board of Rocky Mountain Prep. These overlapping roles highlight how interconnected the interests of City Fund and Denver Families for Public Schools are, and how DFPS is integral in the school privatizationmovement in Denver.

DCTA’s funding is transparent and tied directly to local educators. By contrast, DFPS’s money originates from a national network of wealthy donors whose priorities do not necessarily align with the entire Denver community. This imbalance means one side can dominate the narrative, drowning out authentic community voices. 

When voters receive glossy mailers or see a targeted ad, they may believe they are hearing from grassroots “families” or “students.” However, the spending often comes from the billionaires who fund Denver Families for Public Schools. This is where democracy is at risk. Without transparency, voters cannot fully assess the motives behind the messaging.

Denver’s school board should prioritize issues like equitable funding, strengthening neighborhood schools, and supporting educators. If the dark money spending levels are repeated, or surpassed, in the 2025 races, local priorities risk being overshadowed by billionaire-backed agendas.

The question for Denver voters this fall is straightforward: Will they allow outside money to dictate the future of their public schools, or will they insist on authentic local voices leading the way?

MIKE DEGUIRE

Mike DeGuire, Ph.D., is the vice chair of Advocates for Public Education Policy. He has been a teacher, district level reading coordinator, executive coach, and a principal in the Denver metro area for most of his education career. He also worked as a leadership consultant for several national education organizations, and as an educator effectiveness specialist with the Colorado Department of Education. His writing is also featured on a4pep.org.

Tom Ultican, retired teacher in California, is a dogged researcher of school privatization. He recently examined the origins of the Oakland Public Education Fund” and found that much of its funding comes from Dark Money.

It’s worthwhile to remember that the public schools of Oakland, California, have been a Petri dish for privatizers and corporate reformers for years. Billionaire philanthropists took control of the district and named its superintendents. The charter sector mushroomed. Superintendents came and went, each one hailed as a savior.

Read Tom’s analysis of the Dark Money pursuing privatization in Oakland while posing as avid supporters of public schools.

He writes:

Recently the Oakland Public Education Fund (OPEF) posted, “OUSD Board of Education Renews Long-standing Partnership with The Ed Fund.” OUSD is the Oakland Unified School District and “The Ed Fund” is the latest of many names used to identify OPEF. A quick look at OPEF’s tax forms (TIN: 43-2014630) reveals that they have assets of about $25 million and a yearly income of more than $15 million. The question becomes who is this wealthy group and do their purposes include something more than just good education?

OPEF, formed in 2003 and was originally called “Oakland Autonomous Small Schools Foundation Inc.” EdWeek reported that in 2000 and 2003 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided two grants totaling more than $25 million some of which was designated for small school incubators. It seems likely some of this money was used as seed money to establish OPEF.

The founding executive director of OPEF was Jonathan Klein, a 1997 Yale graduate who became a Teach for America (TFA) fifth grade teacher in the Compton Unified School District. After coming to Oakland in addition to founding OPEF, he went on to become CEO of GO Public Schools, became Bay Area executive director of TFA and chief program officer at the T. Gary and Kathleen Rogers Foundation. In 2013, he was named Change Agent of the year by New Schools Venture Fund. In other words, he is an education profiteer closely associated with enemies of public schools.

According to the OPEF web-page, the organization relaunched as the Oakland Schools Foundation in 2012 and then relaunched again in 2014 as the Oakland Public Education Fund. Today they refer to themselves as the “The Ed Fund.” In 2016, they put in motion a corporate partnership with Salesforce which provided $2.5 million for middle school computer science and math. This raises concerns that “The Ed Fund” is inappropriately employing wealth to drive public school curriculum using other than democratic means.

Billionaires Finance OPEF

A change in the way data was reported appeared in the OPEF tax forms for 2024. Previously, their reporting on the contributor’s page simply stated “RESTRICTED.” The new report still hides the contributor’s names but provides the amounts given by seven individuals.

In addition to the contributors not listed above, the T. Gary and Kathleen Rogers Foundation have granted OPEF a total of $785,833 (IN: 65-1202020), the East Bay Community Foundation contributed $557,760 (IN: 94-6070996) and the Silicon Valley Community Fund provided a whopping $8,349,085 (IN: 20-5205488). The Silicon Valley Community Fund is a dark money site where extremely wealthy people can provide money without their name being attached. It is worth noting that the T. Gary and Kathleen Rogers Foundation has granted the East Bay Community Foundation $6,165,000 since its founding in 2003.

Since 2014, OPEF has averaged giving more than $5 million a year to the Oakland Unified School District for a total of $51,885,477. However, their other spending undermines public education and promotes privatization. Educate78 has received significant support from both the Hastings Fund and the City Fund, known enemies of the public school system. GO Public Schools has been a consistent advocate for expanding the charter school movement. TFA has foisted unqualified teachers with 5 weeks of training on classrooms throughout America. The New Teachers Center is a Bill Gates developed center in Santa Cruz.

Anyone working in a public school knows that charter schools directly compete with and undermine public schools.

To continue reading, open the link.

Jack White is a superstar rock musician. He had the temerity to criticize Trump’s vulgar gold-plated redecoration of the Oval Office. The White House press spokesman lashed out at Jack White. He responded with no holds barred. He doesn’t get federal funding.

Thanks to Andrew Tobias for this nugget.

The White House melts down and attacks music legend Jack White after he insults Donald Trump’s “disgusting” and “vulgar” redecoration of the White House

“Jack White is a washed-up, has-been loser posting drivel on social media because he clearly has ample time on his hands due to his stalled career,” claimed White House spokesman Steven Cheung.

“It’s apparent [White]’s been masquerading as a real artist, because he fails to appreciate, and quite frankly disrespects, the splendor and significance of the Oval Office inside of ‘The People’s House.’”

Jack’s response…

Listen, I’m an artist and not a politician so I’m in no need to give my answer or opinion on anything if I’m not inspired or compelled, but how funny that it wasn’t me calling out trump’s blatant fascist manipulation of government, his gestapo ICE tactics, his racist remarks about Latinos, Native Americans, etc. his ridiculous ‘wall’ construction, his attacks on the disabled, his attempted coup and mob insurrection and destruction of the sacred halls of congress, his disparaging sexist and pedophilic remarks about women, his obvious attempts at distraction about being a close personal friend of Jeffrey Epstein and his inclusion in the Epstein files, his ignorance of the dying children in Sudan, Gaza, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his lack of empathy for military veterans and those struggling with poverty, his attempts to dismantle healthcare, his obvious wimpy and pathetic kowtowing to the dictators Putin and Kim Jong Un, his nazi like rallies, his attempts to sell merchandise and products like Goya beans through the office of the President, his fake ‘gunshot to the ear’ that he showed no medical records or photographs of, his constant, constant, constant lying to the American people, etc. etc. etc.

No, it wasn’t me calling out any of that, it was the f*cking DECOR OF THE OVAL OFFICE remarks I made that got them to respond with insults.  How petty and pathetic and thin skinned could this administration get? ‘Masquerading as a real artist’?  Thank you for giving me my tombstone engraving!  Well here’s my opinion, trump is masquerading as a human being.

He’s masquerading as a Christian, as a leader, as a person with actual empathy. He’s been masquerading as a businessman for decades as nothing he’s involved in has prospered except by using other people’s money to find loophole after loophole and grift after grift.

His staff of professional liar toadies like Steven Cheung and Karoline Leavitt have been covering up and masking his fascism as patriotism and fomenting hatred and division in this country on a daily basis.  And I have ‘ample time on (my) hands’? That orange grifter has spent more tax payer money cheating at golf than helping ANYONE in the country. Improve. Anything. There is no progress with him, only smoke and mirrors and tax breaks for the ultra wealthy.

So MAGA folk, enjoy your concrete paving over of the rose garden, your 200 million dollar ballroom in the White House, and your gaudy ass gold spray painted trinkets from Home Depot, cause he ain’t spending any money on helping YOU unless you fit into his white supremacist country club rich idiot agenda.

Wow, he hates who you hate….good for you, be proud of yourselves, how Christian of you all.

The only way you can support this conman is because you are a victim of the 2 party system and you ‘defend your guy no matter what he does.’  No intelligent person can defend this low life fascist. This bankruptor of casinos. This failed seller of trump steaks, trump vodka, trump water, etc.

This man and his goon squad have failed upwards for decades and have fleeced the American people over and over.  This professional golf cheat, this grifter who has hundreds of thousands of deaths from his inaction of the pandemic on his hands, this man that the majority of the country somehow were fooled into supporting and voting into office (through the flawed electoral college) and their love of reality television stars.

Being insulted by the actual White House that this particular conman leads is a badge of honor to me, because anyone who trump supports and likes is a villain who gives nothing to their fellow man, only takes what can benefit themselves.

And no I’m not a Democrat either, I’m a human being raised in Detroit, I’m an artist who’s owned his own businesses like his own upholstery shop and recording label since he was 21 years old who has enough street sense to know when a 3 card monte dealer is a cheap grifter and a thief.

I was raised to believe that we defeated fascism in World War II and that we would never allow it again in the world. I don’t always state publicly my political opinions, and like anyone I don’t always know all of the facts, but when it comes to this man and this administration I’m not going to be like one of the silent minority of 1930’s Germany. This man is a danger to not just America but the entire world and that’s not an exaggeration, he’s dismantling democracy and endangering the planet on a daily basis, and we. all. know. it.— JW III

Media critic Dan Froomkin wrote the headline above and attached it to a blistering article about major media’s supine knee-bending to Trump. He does outrageous things, and mainstream media treats his power-hungry or unhinged actions as normal. Trump’s actions and pronouncements are not normal. The media should say so.

Froomkin writes:

The top story of the moment is the one story that our most influential newsrooms won’t touch: That the United State has become an authoritarian state.

At some point, the evidence becomes overwhelming —  and we have reached that point. The frog in the metaphorical pot of water has boiled to death.

Armed soldiers patrol the streets of the nation’s capital, with more cities apparently to come. Immigrants who have done nobody any harm are abducted and disappeared by masked agents. The state is seizing stakes of national companies. Election integrity is under attack. Political opponents are targeted with criminal probes. Federal judges’ orders are ignored. Educational institutions are extorted into obedience. Key functions of the government are politicized and degraded. Expertise and science are devalued. Trump speaks of serving an unconstitutional third term. Media organizations are paying tribute to the ruler.

Most significantly, perhaps, there are no guardrails anymore. No one inside the executive branch will tell Trump no. No one in in the ruling party in Congress will tell him no. The right-wing majority of the Supreme Court won’t tell him no.

And our dominant media institutions won’t call him out.

Rather, they obscure reality under a haze of incremental stories, each one presented as if what is going on is fairly normal. As if it’s just politics.

Every outrage is just one more thing Trump has done, rather than the ever-mounting evidence of a corrupt dictatorship.

The coverage is a play-by-play as the burners click upward, rather than a check to see if the frog is still alive, which it is not.

The closest the New York Times newsroom will come to telling readers the truth, for instance, is to say that Trump is “promoting an aura of authoritarian nationalism,” or that certain actions “increasingly remind scholars of the way authoritarian leaders in other countries” behave.

The Washington Post will quote critics accusing Trump of “authoritarian overreach,” and protesters calling him “fascist,” but leaves even the most obvious conclusions to the readers to make themselves.

The Associated Press sometimes levels with its audience. It has published some exemplary articles recently, including “Trump moves to use the levers of presidential power to help his party in the 2026 midterms” and “Trump ran on a promise of revenge. He’s making good on it.” But the day-to-day coverage gives no indication of the breakdown of democracy.

Outside these newsrooms, the cries of “authoritarian” and “fascist” have been numerous, some dating back to 2016. But now the chorus of voices is growing louder and more mainstream.

Historian Garrett Graff called it… He wrote in his “Doomsday Scenario” newsletter:

The United States, just months before its 250^th birthday as the world’s leading democracy, has tipped over the edge into authoritarianism and fascism. In the end, faster than I imagined possible, it did happen here. The precise moment when and where in recent weeks America crossed that invisible line from democracy into authoritarianism can and will be debated by future historians, but it’s clear that the line itself has been crossed.….

Everything else from here on out is just a matter of degree and wondering how bad it will get and how far it will go? Do we end up “merely” like Hungary or do we go all the way toward an “American Reich”? So far, after years of studying World War II, I fear that America’s trajectory feels more like Berlin circa 1933 than it does Budapest circa 2015.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow called it on August 4:

We have crossed a line. We are in a place we did not want to be, but we are there. The thing we were all warning about for the last few years is not coming. It is here. We are in it…

We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country. And it sounds melodramatic to say it, I know, but just go with that for a minute, right? Think — think in melodramatic terms. Think in cinematic terms. Imagine the cartoon level caricature of what you think a dictatorship looks like.

I mean, it’s secret police, right? A massive anonymous unbadged, literally masked, totally unaccountable internal police force ….

You would expect, right, that you’d have a scapegoated minority group blamed for all things, in our case, immigrants, right?….

In a cartoon caricature of an authoritarian country, displays of military might are not just for the country’s external enemies. They’re for the country’s own people, right? Because in an authoritarian country, you turn military force inward toward the people of that country.

She had much more to say. It’s worth watching.

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi called it on Sunday, opening his show with a powerful monologue about the collapse of democracy:

Each new abuse is justified as temporary, necessary, even an emergency. Until one day it’s not temporary at all. Until one day the justifications stop altogether because once power is absolute it no longer feels the need to explain itself. At best, each assault may seem like an outlier until the day you wake up and realize the system itself has become unrecognizable. Well that’s where we are — right now. It’s not where we’re headed. It’s where we are

The tragedy of what’s unfolding and the danger of what’s ahead will be compounded if American citizens an masse – all of us – do not recognize this moment for what it is.

Here’s a transcript.

The question is when — if ever – our newsroom leaders will reach their tipping point.

For now, they will say that it’s not their job to be the opposition – that’s the job of the opposing party. And therefore, if leading Democrats aren’t calling it authoritarianism, then they certainly won’t.

But that excuse is becoming moot. Top Democrats are in fact becoming increasingly blunt – including the Democratic National Committee chair this morning, at the DNC’s summer meeting in Minneapolis. “This is not politics as usual. This is authoritarianism. It’s fascism dressed in a red tie,” Ken Martin said. He also called Trump the “dictator-in-chief.”

It is past time for our most consequential news organizations to recognize that Trump is leading an authoritarian regime.

The article continues. Open the link to finish it.

Jan Resseger summarizes the judicial counterattack to the Trump administration’s efforts to criminalize DEI policies. It’s obvious that the Trump goal is to censor common practices that teach history, warts and all, as well as to kill programs that try to help Black and Hispanic students to succeed.

But the lower federal courts are getting their way. It remains to be seen whether the Trump-dominated U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the lower courts and allow Trump to restore his vision of a white-male dominated society.

Resseger writes:

Earlier this month, the Associated Press’s Collin Binkley broke a story that brought relief and satisfaction to the school superintendents and members of elected school boards across the nation’s 13,000 public school districts: “A federal judge… struck down two Trump administration actions aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the nation’s schools and universities.”

When she reported the story a few minutes later, the NY Times‘ Dana Goldstein highlighted its importance: “A federal judge dealt a sweeping setback on Thursday to President Trump’s education agenda, declaring that the administration cannot move forward with its plans to cut off federal funding from schools and colleges with diversity and equity programs.” But Goldstein cautions: “The legal back and forth is not likely to end any time soon… Eventually, it may be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the president can interpret civil rights law to end racial equity efforts in schools.”

The new ruling is so important, however, that we must all pay attention. Binkley explains: “U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland found that the Education Department violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with DEI initiatives. The guidance has been on hold since April when three federal judges blocked various portions of the Education Department’s anti-DEI measures.” Judge Gallagher’s decision followed a motion for summary judgment from two of the challengers to federal policy—the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association.  Judge Gallagher is a Trump appointee.

Judge Gallagher’s decision will block the implementation of the February 14 “Dear Colleague” letter that Craig Trainor, assistant secretary in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, sent to public school, colleges, and universities, in which he tried to expand the meaning of a narrow 2023 U.S. Supreme Court affirmative action decision, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, as also banning any public school programs or policies designed to achieve diversity, equity and inclusion.

Thursday’s decision will also block the enforcement of the Trump administration’s April 3, 2025 demand that state education agencies and every one of the nation’s 13,000 public school districts sign a certificate promising they had eliminated all programs and policies aimed at achieving DEI.  On April 3rd, the Department of Education threatened to halt federal funding, including Title I funding for public schools serving concentrations of poor children, for schools that refused to follow its order to eliminate DEI.

Goldstein adds that the new decision, “will not lead to immediate changes for schools or colleges, because the administration’s anti-D.E.I. efforts had already been temporarily paused by Judge Gallagher and two other federal judges in April.”  The new decision will, however, ease fear among thousands of public school leaders who have been wrestling with what has seemed a looming threat from the federal government.  Some school districts have already submitted to the federal government’s threats by cancelling programs aimed at reaching students who have historically been left out or left behind.

Binkley and Goldstein both do an excellent job of exploring what the Trump administration seems to mean but never explicitly defines when it condemns its own twisted redefinition of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” While most educators and citizens would like public schools to welcome all students inclusively, to treat students equitably, and to ensure that no children are excluded, the Trump administration has instead tried to turn programs based on these principles into crimes.

Binkley explains that the federal guidance, “amounted to a full-scale reframing of the government’s approach to civil rights in education. It took aim at policies that were created to address longstanding racial disparities, saying those practices were their own form of discrimination.”

Goldstein writes: “While there is no single definition of D.E.I., the Trump administration has indicated that it considers many common K-12 racial equity efforts to fall under the category and to be illegal. Those include directing tutoring toward struggling students of specific races, such as Black boys; teaching lessons on concepts such as white privilege; and trying to recruit a more racially diverse set of teachers. The administration has also warned colleges that they may not establish scholarship programs or prizes that are intended for students of specific races, or require students to participate in ‘racially charged’ orientation programs… The administration had also argued that because the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in college admissions in 2023, all racially conscious education programs are illegal.”  Goldstein concludes: “But those legal interpretations were novel and untested. Judge Gallagher rejected them, writing that the (2023) anti-affirmative action ruling ‘certainly does not proscribe any particular classroom speech or relate at all to curricular choices.’ ”

In her decision on Thursday, Judge Gallagher declared the Trump administration’s ban on “diversity, equity and inclusion” an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment’s protection of  free speech.  Goldstein reports: “In a strongly worded ruling, Judge Stephanie Gallagher… wrote that the administration had not followed proper administrative procedure, and said that its plan was unconstitutional, in part because it risked constraining educators’ free speech rights in the classroom.”

Soon after the Trump administration’s April 3rd letter threatening public school funding including Title I dollars, constitutional law professor Derek Black explained that the April 3rd letter clearly violates the First Amendment protection of free speech, as decided in a landmark, 1943 decision, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. The case involved a widespread requirement in the 1940s that public schools punish or expel students who refused to say “The Pledge of Allegiance.”

Here is how Yale Law School Professor Justin Driver describes the significance of that case in his book, The School-House Gate: Public Education, The Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind:

“Barnette stands out for making three primary substantive innovations that appear at the intersection of constitutional law and education law. First, as a matter of constitutional doctrine, Justice (Robert) Jackson dramatically reconceptualized the requirement (that all students recite the “Pledge”) as raising a question not about the First Amendment’s freedom of religion but about the First Amendment’s freedom of speech… whether people of all backgrounds have an interest in avoiding government-compelled speech…. Jackson suggested that tolerating nonconformity, and even dissidence, was essential to enabling this unusually diverse nation to function.”

Driver quotes Justice Robert Jackson’s decision in the Barnette case: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” (Justin Driver, The School-House Gate, pp. 65-66)