No, Donald Trump can’t eliminate the Department of Education. Here’s what he’s really trying to do.
Donald Trump has announced that he’s signed an executive order eliminating the Department of Education. But in reality he’s done no such thing. The Department of Education can’t be eliminated by executive order. Even if it could, Trump’s executive order doesn’t claim to eliminate it. Only Congress can do that, and it would require sixty Senate votes – which will never happen. So why is Trump lying and claiming that he’s eliminating the Department of Education.
Part of this is, obviously, to fire up his anti-government, anti-education, pro-ignorance base. The irony of their anti-education stance is that it makes it very easy for someone like Trump to fool them into believing that he’s done something that he hasn’t done. And so Trump gets to score points with his ignorant base just by making this false announcement, which they’ll accept as fact.
Given Trump’s declining cognitive condition, it’s even possible that he believes his executive order has eliminated the Department of Education. Trump’s babysitters appear to be selling him on all kinds of simplistic imaginary victories in order to keep him happy. But there’s more to it than this, and it involves us.
By announcing that the Department of Education has been eliminated, Trump (or whatever babysitter cooked up this scheme) is trying to fool us into believing that it’s a done deal. We’re not ignorant enough to fall for this kind of thing, But we are busy, scattered, and trying to fight Trump on a dozen fronts at once amidst a confusing haze of disinformation. Accordingly a whole lot of folks on our side came out of this week believing that Trump has eliminated the Department of Education. Which is the point.
As important as the Department of Education may be to you, you’re not going to fight to save it if you think it’s already gone. And so the Trump regime is very much hoping that Trump’s announcement this week has left you with the impression that the Department of Education has been shuttered and that the battle is over. Because then you won’t bother to fight him on it.
In reality the Department of Education is very much alive. Trump can’t kill it. Nor can this Congress under its current makeup. But they can drastically cut its funding, lay off a large number of employees, and weaken the agency to the point that it’s not nearly as effective. In fact they’re beginning to do this already this week – and they’re hoping you won’t notice because you’re too busy mistakenly mourning the outright death of the Department of Education.
This is why it’s so important to look past Trump’s words, which nearly always overstate his abilities and actions, and to look past the media’s resulting hyperbole, which nearly always attempts to convince us that we’ve already lost the battle and that there’s nothing left to do but stare at our screen. We have to look at what’s actually going on, what is and is not actually possible, what’s actually happened. Then we can assess how specifically to fight back.
Right now we should be fighting to save the Department of Education from pending funding cuts and raise awareness about how important it is for all Americans to protect the agency. If all we do is sit around making social media posts that mistakenly mourn the death of an agency that hasn’t died, all we’re doing is making it easier for Trump to keep harming the agency. So let’s go save the Department of Education. It’s very much alive, but also very much in need of our immediate support.
