- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.world
Summary
The White House is drafting an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, aligning with Trump’s long-standing pledge.
However, Congress must approve the agency’s abolition, making its passage unlikely despite GOP control. Critics, including the National Education Association, warn this move would harm students, increase costs, and weaken protections.
GOP lawmakers have repeatedly attempted to eliminate the department since its 1979 founding.
Trump also recently signed an order expanding school choice, reinforcing the Republican agenda of decentralizing education policy.
You must log in or # to comment.
And the sad part is that a lot of teachers voted for Cheetolini.
that will… teach them?
If NBC thinks he needs an act of Congress then they haven’t been paying paying attention to USAID.
Who the fuck am I kidding, they know damn well what’s going on and refuse to print it.
This CollegeHumor video was 8 years ahead of its time: If the Other Party Wins
Almost forgot Congress was a thing since there’s been little to no mention about them in this shit circus
That’s by design, they stay silent and don’t take the polling hit.
Keep people dumb. Write their own history to “educate” the dumb. Sounds about right.
For this reason, if you have anything with at least 32 GB of RAM and a GPU, you should get a copy of Ollama and test it out running a local copy of Deepseek. That’s going to soon become the best 0 new dollars tool for access to education.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
I was going to ask if this means I no longer have to pay back my student loans, but of course I know better than that.
Shit is getting done so scattershot, I think there’s a really, really good chance that a lot of records are going to fall through the cracks or “fall through the cracks” as different databases are deleted, offices closed, code based altered, and agencies demolished.
Would be funny af if some madlad goes maliciouscompliance and deletes all records on student loans or something like that.
Don’t forget those backups need to also be corrupted or otherwise unrecoverable as well
please_god.png
Thats the goal.
Evennif somehow there is another election, everything will be too broken to even begin to repair it.
Yup. And I thought that the U.K. was a shit hole.
So how is Betsy DeVos gonna siphon money for public schools to provide schools?
Is this better or worse then him packing the Department of Education with ideologues?
In case anyone is still wondering if Republicans are enemies of the United States of America, you need not wonder anymore.
Why use big words when small words do trick.
Soon enough, when you have to select a language on a devive, the difference between: english (uk) and english (american) will make a whole lot more sense.
The executive order’s a symbolic gesture—Congress won’t scrap the Department outright. But the subtext? Steady erosion. Shift student debt oversight to Treasury, pare back civil rights investigations, let federal education funds atrophy. States then fill the vacuum: red ones push vouchers, defund “woke” curricula, blue ones scramble to plug gaps.
The playbook’s transparent. Undermine trust in public institutions, then offer “choice” as salvation. Rural GOP districts take the bait, then recoil when their Title I lunches and special ed services evaporate. Even conservatives quietly rely on federal data systems and grant streams—hypocrisy’s baked in.
Latest school choice expansions? Distraction tactics. Real damage accrues in the margins: disabled students lose protections, civil rights complaints backlog, teacher retention plummets. ED’s survived 40 years of GOP vitriol because dismantling it’s all optics, no payoff.
Predictable cycle. Provoke outrage, let chaos incentivize privatization. Rinse, repeat.
The executive orders are the start of rule by decree, and as long as the legislative and judicial branches let it happen, he’ll get away with it.
Rule by decree? My brother in Christ, have you met the federal bureaucracy? Even if they published the order tomorrow, implementation would take years of litigation. Death by a thousand memoranda.
The executive order’s a symbolic gesture—Congress won’t scrap the Department outright.
You’re wrong. They will not wait for Congress to do anything.
Who the fuck is going to stop them, you?
The courts, actually. Been there since Nixon tried similar stunts. Administrative state’s got more staying power than most realize. But hey, doom scrolling’s more fun than reading SCOTUS precedents.
Oh, the SCOTUS that said anything done by a sitting president is automatically legal? That one?
Ah, you mean the unitary executive theory? That magical interpretation where presidential power is somehow absolute? Fascinating how selective that reading was—worked great for executive orders, not so much for criminal immunity.
The courts have been remarkably… flexible with precedent lately. But even in this twilight zone version of constitutional law, there’s still that pesky difference between issuing orders and having them actually implemented. The machinery of state has its own peculiar physics.
Though I suppose when SCOTUS is rewriting administrative law on the fly, precedent becomes more of a suggestion than a rule. Welcome to the constitutional speedrun era.
They will physically remove people from their jobs if it comes down to it, regardless of the legality of the order. You really don’t seem to get it.
Physical force is amateur hour thinking. You can march people out at gunpoint, sure. Then what? Who runs payroll? Maintains infrastructure? Implements policy? Even dictatorships need functioning bureaucracy.
But keep thinking might-makes-right while actual power plays happen in budget meetings and administrative procedures.
We already have precedent for a president ignoring a SCOTUS decision (Andrew Jackson).
Does the Supreme Court have some kind of secret police force that makes sure the other two branches of the government follow their rulings?
In fascism, might makes right, and the person with the biggest guns/army gets what they want, or else they just fucking kill you.
Jackson’s precedent created a constitutional crisis that haunted executive power for generations. But let’s ignore history because “guns solve everything,” right?
And no, SCOTUS doesn’t need secret police when they have the entire administrative state’s inertia. The machine keeps running because people show up, file papers, and follow procedure—not because someone’s pointing weapons.
The playbook’s transparent. Undermine trust in public institutions, then offer “choice” as salvation.
So that’s the game
Been the Republicans game for as long as I can remember.
“The government sucks, it’s too big, and it’s broken. Elect me so I can break it more to prove I was right”
Well yeah, but that’s Step 1, I was never sure what Step 2 was…
A false choice that equates to gift-wrapping a ticking time bomb and saying it’s a brand new alarm clock…
Makes sense
Congress doesn’t need to be okay with it if Elon’s cronies waltz in and kick everyone out.
Ah, the classic “just do it anyway” approach. Cute, but federal agencies have this pesky thing called statutory authority. Even Elon’s crew can’t magic away the Administrative Procedure Act. Though watching them try would be… entertaining.
What about the last eight years has made you think these people will follow the rule of law?
adjusts reading glasses, sips coffee
Look, I get the revolutionary fervor—very 2025 energy. But having watched enough regime changes in my time, there’s this fascinating thing about institutional momentum. Even when someone kicks in the door waving the proverbial .44, bureaucracy has its own gravity.
Sure, the last eight years showed some… creative interpretations of executive power. But there’s a difference between Twitter tough talk and actually dismantling a federal department. Those career civil servants? They’ve survived multiple “this time it’s different” moments.
Not saying the system’s perfect—hell, it’s a mess. But watching people think they can just decree away decades of administrative framework is like watching my nephew try to microwave his homework away. Entertaining, but not quite how things work.
Then again, what do I know? I just watch the pendulum swing.
I understand your argument. But the entire premise is grounded in the assumption of courts upholding precedent and not letting an executive operate outside the confines of the law. The president has immunity. Congress is ineffectual at best and actively evil at worst. I mean for fucks sake, the current occupant of the White House lead an attempted coup and is still being permitted to sign, enact and decree legislation. If the checks and balances in our system were functioning, I’d be willing to get in line with you. But it’s so painfully clear that they are not.
taps pen on desk, stares into middle distance
You know what this reminds me of? Nixon’s impoundment crisis. Back in '73, he tried to just… not spend congressionally appropriated funds. Thought executive authority trumped everything else. Ended with the Budget Act of '74 and a whole new framework of constraints.
Or consider Reagan’s attempt to abolish the Department of Energy. Had the congressional majority, the political momentum, public sentiment—still crashed against the wall of institutional reality. Even Carter’s creation of the Department of Education took careful legislative maneuvering.
The system’s definitely more brittle now, no argument there. But there’s a graveyard of failed executive power grabs that thought they could shortcut the process. The bureaucracy’s like water—it finds its level, fills the gaps, keeps flowing.
Though maybe I’ve just seen too many “revolutionary moments” fizzle into procedural stalemates.
It’s crazy that people still don’t seem to understand this.
The White House is drafting
an executive ordera royal decree to dismantle the Department of Education, aligning with Trump’slong-standing pledgelong con.CriticsAn overwhelming consensus of experts, including the National Education Association, warn this move would harm students, increase costs, and weaken protections.Trump also recently signed
an order expanding school choicea decree lowering educational standards, reinforcing the Republican agenda ofdecentralizing education policydismantling public secular education in favor of religious and political indoctrination.There, fixed the “we must obscure reality by using their terms so they won’t come after us next” cowardice.
Congress is required for all sorts of shit that Elon is doing but that isn’t stopping Elon.
Laws are not some sort of natural force. They are implemented by people and all of those people are either fascists or cowards.
Trumps immunity plus his pardon power make him king. All of his minions can do all the illegal things they want. Trump can then pardon them and he isn’t liable for their crimes if he is doing something roughly in line with his duties are President. John Roberts fucked us all.
The only way this is going to be solved is by people power. Organize. Fight these fascists.
Normally the state would have a lot less power over judges. In the US the state has power over judges AND there is a jury system.
This is exactly why musk is not appointed, he can’t be impeached and as you said DOJ and pardons will protect him.
You forgot money.
They already blocked organization by controlling the mass media and major social platforms are in cahoots.
Facebook, Twitter/X and tiktok all pushed trump and hid Kamala during the campaign. Not to mention the influencers that got paid to push Trump.
Any type of hashtag or trend that tries to fight back is just going to get pushed down in “the algorithm” or straight up blocked (search kamala on twitter)
nobody is forced to use these platforms and we were able to deal with worse restrictions.
That’s why word-of-mouth about the Fediverse is so powerful - and why it’ll become increasingly important to return to the old methods of organizing - in person, posters put up at night, meetings in basements and in homes, discussions in back alleys and storage closets. Zines and fliers.
Huh… I’m tired of feeling helpless, and have been wondering what I can do. I’m so frustrated with the constant bombardment of awful news, and the fact that seemingly nobody I interact with in the real world has any fucking idea that it’s happening.
Maybe I’ll be that crazy guy that makes his own newsletter and hands it out at work.
Maybe I’ll be that crazy guy that makes his own newsletter and hands it out at work.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Never mind about zines and flyers. Do graff. Project images on the sides of buildings. Put up QR codes that point to ephemeral sites. Nothing persistent, nothing traceable.
I think WhatsApp groups might work to spread the word as well. It’s mainstream enough and can’t be banned like other platforms.
It’s owned by Meta, why would you trust them?
Most privacy minded people don’t, but that is something that is a lot harder to get rid of for the majority of the countries where it is the default way of communicating these days
Its E2E messaging so no moderation.
Since it has widespread adoption one could use it to great local groups to share info and plan protests.
And they can update this away any time
May as well use it until that happens, with a pre decided on backup plan so everyone knows where to meet up again when it does
Its E2E messaging so no moderation.
It’s META so there’s no assurance they’re not giving you the MITM treatment.
Correct. If you want to see how fascism ends, look at pictures of Mussolini’s corpse hanging in public. That’s the only way it ends. The sooner the better
That’s how fascism ended that one time. Francisco Franco died of old age in his bed. So did Pinochet. The generals’ junta in Portugal were eased out but the guilty were never held to account. The future is what we make it be. History doesn’t write itself.
Excuse my ignorance but organize to do what specific actions?
We’ll let you know when you have a need to know.
Here is a single thing that anyone should be doing, there are other resources elsewhere. But everyone should be working with their unions or forming unions at their places of work. It is surprisingly easy to do, and even MAGA people can recognize they are being fucked by capital. Unionizing the workplace is where our power lies. It is the thing that fascists have always feared. Use those unions to gain concessions from the bosses. Get higher wages, safer work environments, set schedules, etc.
Ok, here is a second idea. Feed your neighbors. Go help feed the homeless folk in your community.
Showing compassion for everyone is a radical act. Build solidarity.
Sounds like something Jesus would do. Woke idiot.
/s, or is it
“The failure mode of clever is “asshole.”” John Scalzi
I’ve had the misfortune to know a lot of assholes in my life, and very few of them were clever. So, at very least, it’s the failure mode for a much wider staring group than the clever.
The thing to do to stop this was vote blue no matter who in the 2016 and 2024 elections. Failing that, you’ll have to convince 13 Republicans to impeach and remove Donald Trump.
But guess what? That won’t happen. No matter what, we’re going to see people suffer and violence in the streets. Whether you’re keeping yourself safe at home or contributing to the violence is up to you.
The most critical things that needs to happen right now is Removed by mod.
Nudge nudge wink wink say no more.
HR 899
0 cosponsors and probably hasn’t even been looked at by the education committed it was submitted to.
We’re wasting time talking about theoretical nonlaws when theres actual real shit happening.
For real. Plus it’s Dem-sponsored, so until it gets an R cosponsor it’s likely not even going to make it to the floor.
Education is Fascisms biggest enemy. That’s why.
Ignorance is Strength
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
deleted by creator
It might be worth mentioning that Andrew Johnson signed the Department of Education into law in 1867. It was elevated to a cabinet position in 1979 by Carter from it’s previous position within the Department of Health, Education, And Welfare.
The idea that the government has a constitutional interest in fostering the education of the public is NOT a new thing contrary to what conservatives would have you believe. An educated populace is an essential function of a representative democracy.
They want feudalism
But I can’t figure out why. A society with severe brain drain would lead to reduced quality of life for them as well. Are they just banking on AI to do everything while everyone dies in rebellions and counter-rebellions? Shit, that’s probably it.
If everything is going to shit, getting a slightly less shit deal even if it means everyone else gets a whole lot more shit is a deal people will take just about 10/10 times across an electorate.
Neura-starlink, first on prisoners, then on everyone else and apparently the op paperclip people in conjunction with USA make the thousand year reign a reality.
Fascists aren’t particularly smart. They tend to lose in the long run because they just cannot comprehend anything complex. All their philosophy is wishful thinking and simple heuristics that follow their preconceived notions about the superiority of their in group.
They want feudalism because they can’t stand anyone having power other than the people who deserve to rule. They can’t stand that non elites can vote, demand decent wages, etc. so they want feudalism without understanding the downstream effects of that.
They are just fucking dumb. And that is why, if we get enough time, we will win against them. Climate change might get us. But we will fucking destroy these no knowing fuck wits.
They measure their quality of life by their ability to dominate others. On top of the desire for feudalism for many of them is a desire for theocracy. For them politics peaked at the divine right of kings.
Yeah, I also don’t understand why they’re aiming for this kind of society. Eventually they’ll cut so much that the actual pie will shrink, so they’ll end up getting less while being surrounded by slums.
Yeah, but at least a black person didn’t get something they didn’t.
More white people on food stamps than black.
But an educated populace is anathema to the ruling class.
In a democracy the people are the ruling class.
Show me a single democracy where there is only one social class.
Show me any government where there is only one social class.
The US is no longer a democracy.
Never has been
Not when there’s only two parties available: the fascist party and the party of drinking tea while watching the fascists burn the world, voting to confirm henchmen between sips.
