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Authoritarian movements target schools because democracy is learned there.
Anti-trans rhetoric is a tool to dismantle public education itself.
Fascism thrives by dehumanizing difference and eroding civic trust.
Protecting teachers means defending the front line of pluralism.
Maya May brought together journalist Imara Jones and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten for a conversation on the coordinated attack against both trans rights and public schools. Imara traced how extremist networks — from Moms for Liberty to the Proud Boys — weaponize anti-trans fear to fracture communities and undermine the local democratic infrastructure school boards represent. Randi connected that campaign to a deeper authoritarian project: destroying the one civic institution where children of all backgrounds still gather, learn, and question power. Together, they mapped the link between big-money privatizers, Christian nationalists, and the far right’s cultural crusade to make public education unsafe for democracy itself.
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When a society stops defending its teachers, it starts surrendering its future. Public education is the last functioning muscle of democratic life, the place where children practice equality before they ever vote. The campaign to dismantle that space, fueled by fear of trans students and resentment toward educators, is a war against the idea of pluralism itself. What’s being defunded, banned, and harassed out of existence is not curriculum — it’s empathy, critical thinking, and civic imagination. To stand with teachers and students is to stand against the machinery of authoritarianism that thrives on ignorance and division. The question isn’t whether we can afford to protect public education — it’s whether we can survive without it.
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