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The Hill
11 hours ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Democrats can rebuild government by learning from how Trump has destroyed it
We know the tragic effects of President Trump's dismantling of the federal government. Social Security service delivery are in crisis. Calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of disaster go unanswered. Rural hospitals brace for a loss of federal support. And now congressional Republicans are surrendering the power of the purse to further hobble core government services by choking off funding. But the truth is, Trump alone didn't break the federal government. He is putting the devastating capstone on a decades-long conservative project of undermining its capacity to function: underfunding agencies, outsourcing expertise, layering on procedural hurdles, stacking courts with partisan allies, and eroding public trust. Long before Trump took office, the result was a government that couldn't move quickly, deliver boldly or meet the needs of the people it was supposed to serve. And when the government is unable to visibly respond to people's discontent and aspirations within the timeframe of an electoral mandate, the legitimacy of democracy itself erodes. If Democrats truly believe in the power of government to improve people's lives, they should be cautious about reverting to pre-Trump institutions. Our time in the Biden-Harris administration taught us that the federal government wasn't meeting the needs of middle- or working-class people long before the 2024 election. What was left of it has now been intentionally sabotaged. If we want to implement a bold policy agenda in the future — one that truly creates agency, power and opportunity for people who don't have it — we have to start planning now to build the basic infrastructure for a government that's much more responsive to and resonant with ordinary Americans, not the monied few. For too long, Democrats have been stuck in a vicious cycle of playing catch-up in a game with existential stakes. Phase one: Republicans dismantle government programs and services and trigger economic crises through their laissez-faire approach to governance. Phase two: Democrats retake power, and then scramble to steer a hobbled system back to the status quo. Phase three: Democrats fail to deliver the visible change the electorate craves, Republicans retake power, and the cycle repeats. What has to change? We need to confront a hard truth: Despite good intentions and tireless efforts from appointees and civil servants alike, the old tools and norms have not worked. Administrative rulemaking has been too slow, fragile, and captured by well-resourced industries to meaningfully serve the public interest. Major policies passed with fanfare took four or more years to show results — long after voters were asked to judge them. Meanwhile, activist courts stacked by the right delayed or dismantled even modest reforms. Agencies were afraid to antagonize the powerful industries they were supposed to oversee, or to take an investment risk and face public failure. Enforcement against corporate lawbreaking was underfunded and slow. Outsourcing of core government functions made private contractors rich even when their performance was shoddy. And far too often, the government was a distant, impenetrable behemoth that piled paperwork on Americans, instead of proactively listening to them to understand their needs and deliver frictionless services in response. We can't win back faith in government with policies that are invisible, delayed or drowned in process. We need a new playbook — one that matches the urgency of the moment and the acuteness of people's needs. One that learns, paradoxically, from the relentlessness of Trump and his allies. What they've demonstrated is that the rules and norms constraining government action aren't fixed laws of nature. They're conventions — and they can be changed. If there's no political cost for ignoring them in the service of corporate power and oligarchic corruption, there should be even less fear about changing them to make government work better for ordinary people. Democrats should take the lesson: Flip the risk profile. Go big or go home. That means reorganizing policymaking around speed, visibility and political resonance. It means building teams around outcome-driven missions — not statutes, institutional bias or risk-averse compliance. It means treating economic, legal, outreach and communications strategy as one integrated campaign, and working much more collaboratively with our state and local government partners and community-based organizations. It means starting work long before Day One with the understanding that we will need to simultaneously build and deliver: pre-drafting policies, mapping authorities, recruiting top-flight talent and identifying the signature priorities for each agency that will show up in people's lives within a single term. These are unified campaign-style operations, not bureaucratic ones. And it means breaking free from the norms that keep the government mired in caution. Abolish or radically retool obsolete veto gates, such as the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Limit judicial meddling in economic policy choices made by political leaders accountable to the people, and refocus courts on protecting individual liberties. Make the government great to work for again, and repopulate it with technologists, statisticians, product managers, service designers, community organizers and movement lawyers. Clean out the procedural clutter that saps time and bandwidth. We've seen what gets in the way. Now it's time to start clearing it. Importantly, when we act, we must act boldly. During the last administration, the types of policies that resonated were the big, simple, universal ones: a cap on insulin prices, a ban on junk fees, an end to noncompetes, a free, easy way to file your taxes. These were policies designed to be tangible, memorable and swift — and they addressed economic frustrations that transcend partisan lines. That's not just good economics. It's good politics. It's good democracy. Policies must provide proof that the government can still work for ordinary people, not just large corporations or insiders. For too long, Democrats have tried to govern within a framework designed to thwart them and to protect entrenched interests. Trump simply ignored it. If we want to change that trajectory for government, we need to be just as fearless and bold in building a new framework as Republicans have been in destroying the old one. If Democrats want to lead, the party must demonstrate that the government can — and will — continue to change lives for the better. Let's stop trying to tinker with a broken machine. Let's start building one that actually works.
Roya News
4 days ago
- Politics
- Roya News
Biden administration accused of funding 'Israeli' protests against Netanyahu
The Biden-Harris administration is facing accusations of indirectly funding protests in 'Israel' against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Oct. 7, 2023. A memo released by the House Judiciary Committee alleges that US taxpayer dollars were funneled to organizations involved in demonstrations opposing Netanyahu's proposed judicial reforms. "The Committee's oversight has revealed that the Biden-Harris Administration provided grant funds to groups that contributed directly and indirectly to the judicial reform protests that sought to undermine the Israeli government," the committee wrote. Netanyahu amplified the allegations by posting a chart from the memo on his X account, accusing Washington of political interference. "An official document published by the US Congress reveals astonishing information that confirms what many have long suspected: the previous US administration transferred nearly a billion dollars to left-wing NGOs in Israel, with the aim of undermining the rule of the government," Netanyahu wrote in Hebrew. מפלגת הליכוד: לראות ולא להאמין - התערבות זרה מסיבית בניסיון להחליף ממשלת ימין בישראל. מסמך רשמי שפורסם על ידי הקונגרס האמריקאי חושף מידע מדהים שמאשר את מה שרבים חשדו בו כבר זמן רב: ממשל ארה״ב הקודם העביר קרוב למיליארד דולר לעמותות שמאל בישראל, במטרה לערער את שלטונה של ממשלת… — Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) July 18, 2025 - Congressional investigation into NGOs - The Judiciary Committee, along with the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, sent letters in March to six American and 'Israeli' NGOs demanding documents related to grants from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department. So far, 380 documents have been submitted. The organizations under scrutiny are Blue White Future (BWF), Movement for Quality Government in Israel (MQG), PEF Israel Endowment Funds, Jewish Communal Fund (JCF), Middle East Peace Dialogue Network (MEPDN), and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. According to the committee's memo: BWF allegedly received funds through NGOs supported by US grants and financed protest coalition headquarters. The Biden-Harris administration reportedly provided USD 42,000 to MQG for activism training in Israeli high schools. PEF Israel Endowment Funds allegedly channeled over USD 884 million to groups involved in protests. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors is accused of directing portions of USD 20 million in federal grants to protest-related organizations. JCF allegedly contributed USD 42.8 million to protest headquarters and major funders. - Reactions - BWF strongly rejected the claims. "Blue White Future categorically rejects the false and groundless allegations concerning its funding and activities," said CEO Rotem Perelman-Farhi in a statement to Fox News. "No state entity, administration, or government body — American or otherwise (USAID included) — has ever provided funding to the organization, whether directly or indirectly. All donations to the organization originate from private donors who care deeply about Israel's security and its future." JCF, while cooperating with the investigation, disputed the memo's findings, arguing that private donors control its donor-advised funds. "JCF makes grants at the recommendation of underlying donors and, as such, distributions from DAFs at JCF reflect the wishes of underlying donors," the group said. - Context of the protests - Before October 7, 'Israel' was engulfed in mass protests over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul, which critics said threatened democratic checks and balances. Former President Joe Biden had publicly voiced concern at the time. "Like many strong supporters of Israel, I'm very concerned. I'm concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road. I've sort of made that clear," Biden said in March 2023.
New York Post
15-07-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
How ‘charities,' funded by your tax dollars, helped break immigration law
When violent riots erupted across Los Angeles in defiance of President Trump's efforts to enforce federal immigration law, the uprising was not as spontaneous as open-borders politicians would have you believe. Far-left non-governmental organizations, including the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), helped provide transportation and services to those going to the protests in support of illegal immigration, many of which quickly devolved into brutal attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As it turns out, CHIRLA received nearly $34 million in California state grants from June 2022 to June 2023. Advertisement From October 2021 to September 2024, under the Biden-Harris administration, the group also received $450,000 in grants from the Department of Homeland Security. But this pattern of incentivizing lawless behavior at taxpayers' expense isn't an isolated case — it is an example of the extensive partnership of open-borders activists and their allies in the Biden-Harris administration, and Americans are still paying the cost. On Wednesday, my Committee will examine this pattern and its impacts in a hearing featuring testimony from Mike Howell of the Oversight Project, human trafficking expert Ali Hopper, and veteran border and riot correspondent Julio Rosas. Advertisement Every one of these witnesses has seen up close how these organizations work with Democrat officials and open-borders policies to advance a pro-illegal immigration agenda — from how NGOs help incentivize cartel human smuggling across our borders and participate in the final mile of this illicit activity, to how they work with far-left rioters opposing ICE enforcement in our streets today. Over the last four years, the Biden-Harris administration's catch-and-release policies allowed more than 13 million to cross our borders, including gang members, criminals and suspected terrorists. From the early days of the historic border crisis, Biden and Harris' DHS released these inadmissible aliens to a vast network of NGOs, particularly those operating at the border. These groups received billions of taxpayer dollars from DHS and the Department of Health and Human Services to provide all manner of services to illegal aliens once they were released from U.S. Customs and Border Protection or ICE custody including legal services, lodging, and transportation to the destination of their choice. Advertisement These NGOs not only incentivized illegal entry, however — they actively participated in completing the human smuggling chain begun by the cartels outside our borders. The evidence of this NGO industrial complex is incontrovertible. A groundbreaking 2022 study using mobile-device data showed that NGOs were serving as a launching pad for illegal aliens to disperse throughout the country. In a 2023 transcribed interview with the Committee, then-Chief Patrol Agent for the Del Rio Sector Jason Owens described how NGOs were complicit in funneling millions of inadmissible aliens into the country, saying, 'A large portion of [the aliens] were being given parole and … ICE would then turn them over to NGOs for them to travel to wherever they were going to go while they await their hearing.' Advertisement In March, the Committee opened an investigation into the mayors of Los Angeles, New York City, and Chicago — sanctuary cities that helped funnel funding to numerous far-left NGOs during the border crisis. Last month, the Committee expanded its probe to more than 200 NGOs across the country that are suspected of using taxpayer funds to support or benefit from illegal immigration. NGOs like CHIRLA, Catholic Charities USA, Make the Road New York, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Haitian Bridge Alliance, Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors all received letters requesting information on how they spent government funds during the crisis and how they may have used those dollars to encourage and facilitate illegal immigration. The near-total lack of accountability for how the taxpayer dollars given to NGOs were spent under the Biden-Harris administration is unacceptable. In March 2023, the DHS Office of Inspector General reported that an audit could not account for more than half of the DHS funding that the OIG reviewed, due to lack of proper documentation by these groups. The overall funding to these NGOs was immense. The Biden border crisis was good for business, as many NGOs saw their annual revenues rise significantly during the Biden-Harris administration. Advertisement For example, it was reported that three prominent NGOs that assisted illegal aliens went from making a combined $597 million in revenue in 2019 to $3 billion just three years later in 2022 — an increase of 400%. One NGO, Southwest Key Programs, received more than $2 billion under the previous administration to provide services for unaccompanied alien children. However, an HHS OIG report found that Southwest Key leadership may have improperly benefited from the deal, with one top employee receiving a 280% increase in salary by Fiscal Year 2023 to $1.2 million. Last summer, the federal government sued Southwest Key, alleging that employees engaged in a pattern of sexual abuse and harassment against the children in its shelters and failed to take sufficient action to protect the children in its care. Advertisement Under the Trump administration, HHS has stopped all placement of unaccompanied alien children in Southwest Key facilities. Another NGO, Endeavors, received sole-source, no-bid ICE contracts under Biden and Harris, despite having no experience as a lead contractor for shelter services. The non-profit received more than $2 billion in federal contracts under the Biden-Harris administration. In 2023, Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, a senior director at Endeavors and former ICE employee under the Biden administration, admitted in an undercover video that he used his previous connections with Biden's 2020 transition team to help facilitate the contacts. Advertisement While the Trump administration has successfully re-secured our borders and is working to put the abuse of taxpayer dollars under the Biden-Harris administration behind us, a lot of damage has already been done — and the money has already been spent. American taxpayer dollars were laundered through Biden and Harris' DHS to these 'non-profits,' who then used those dollars to undermine the laws of the same government giving them funding. Congress must ensure the NGOs and far-left officials that benefited from and contributed to the worst border crisis in American history are held accountable. Advertisement As many of these same NGOs fight the Trump administration's efforts to restore law and order, we must be vigilant that they never again receive a business opportunity like the Biden border crisis. Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK), is the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability.
Boston Globe
01-07-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
An offhand remark about gold bars, secretly recorded, upended his life
'It was a boring date,' Efron, 29, recalled. 'He just wanted to talk about work.' Brady took a particular interest in the fate of billions of dollars that Congress had ordered the EPA to spend on tackling climate change. Trump had promised on the campaign trail to repeal climate programs, so the Biden administration was 'trying to get the money out as fast as possible,' Efron told his date. Advertisement Efron, a passionate believer in the EPA's mission 'to protect human health and the environment,' came up with an analogy to describe what was happening: The agency was a cruise ship that had hit an iceberg. It needed to launch its lifeboats — climate and clean energy projects — right away. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'It truly feels we're on the Titanic and we're throwing gold bars off the edge,' he told Brady. Brady left after about an hour, and Efron said he barely thought about the date again — until a video of him appeared on the website of Project Veritas, a right-wing group known for using covert recordings to embarrass political opponents. Brady, who had posed as a politically liberal commercial real estate agent and recent transplant to the capital, was actually a Project Veritas operative with a hidden camera. Advertisement The conversation — particularly the phrase 'gold bars' — has come to haunt Efron. Conservative media and Republicans immediately trumpeted those words as supposed evidence that the Biden administration had mishandled funds. Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, repeatedly cited the video as he worked to cancel $20 billion that the Biden administration had granted to finance projects like electric vehicle charging stations in low-income communities and installing geothermal systems to heat and cool subsidized housing. Zeldin has blasted out media releases with headlines like 'Administrator Zeldin Terminates Biden-Harris $20B 'Gold Bar' Grants' and 'EPA Formally Refers Financial Mismanagement of $20B 'Gold Bars' to Inspector General.' 'The entire scheme, in my opinion, is criminal,' Zeldin said on Fox News in February, adding, 'We found the gold bars. We want them back.' Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin at a meeting in the White House in Washington, on April 30. Zeldin posted the video of Efron to his official X account in February, just two weeks after he was confirmed to lead the EPA PETE MAROVICH/NYT It would not matter that a Justice Department investigation found no evidence of criminal conduct by Biden officials or grant recipients, and that a federal judge ruled that Zeldin's team failed to prove allegations of misconduct. The administration's own lawyers acknowledged internally that the claims are misguided. The unfortunate truth, for Efron, was that he had handed the EPA's critics a powerful political weapon, and he is still paying a personal price. Since the Project Veritas video aired — but especially since Zeldin posted it to his X account two days in a row in February, receiving almost 3 million views — he has been publicly shamed by Elon Musk, obscenely berated by anonymous callers and hauled into an interview with the FBI. All because of an online date. Advertisement On a recent Thursday, Efron described his ordeal over green tea at Three Fifty Bakery & Coffee Bar in Dupont Circle. It had been months since the video came out, yet he still seemed hurt and bewildered that he could have gotten into such a mess. 'I spend every day thinking about this,' he said, his voice shaking. 'I go to bed thinking about it. I wake up thinking about it.' He said that the excerpt Project Veritas posted made it seem as if he had some authority over the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the program that funded the clean energy projects. But he had nothing to do with grant-making decisions. His job simply involved tracking EPA-funded projects to make sure they conformed to wage requirements and other labor laws. Efron also said he was expressing what everyone in Washington knew: that Trump intended to kill climate programs and the Biden administration was trying to save them. 'It's been used to justify actions that I view as terrible, in terms of trying to cancel grants and claw back funding, and I want to set the record straight,' Efron said. 'I want people to understand what I meant. I'd like Lee Zeldin to understand what I meant.' Gold Bars and Lifeboats Efron was feeling depressed about the presidential election when Brady swiped right on his Tinder profile, and he was looking forward to meeting someone who shared his politics. His profile didn't identify him as an EPA employee. But it did say that he worked on climate policy, lived in Washington and recently earned a master's degree from Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. In retrospect, Efron said, anyone could have learned the nature of his midlevel federal job with a simple Google search. But when he matched with Brady, the idea that he could be targeted never crossed his mind. Advertisement Their conversation went from Tinder to text, and they agreed to meet for a drink at Licht Cafe on Nov. 20. Earlier that evening, Efron had been out at a happy hour with colleagues where they talked about how proud they were of EPA's record on addressing climate change and how they worried the Trump administration would reverse any gains. The Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters in Washington. MORIAH RATNER/NYT That was when Efron first thought of the Titanic analogy. He told his colleagues that the funding for clean energy projects going to states, cities, tribes and nonprofit groups were like gold bars being tossed into lifeboats to protect some of the Biden administration's work. 'What I meant was, we were giving money to protect rural Washington from wildfire smoke, and fund a health clinic in Georgia and a community farm in Missouri and help tribal communities that are falling into the ocean in Alaska,' he said. 'Those were lifeboats.' Efron had a drink, but Brady did not consume any alcohol. After discussing climate change, Brady asked some questions about Vice President Kamala Harris, but Efron didn't have much to say. Brady abruptly declared he had to leave. Two weeks later, at 3:07 p.m. on Dec. 2, an email landed in Efron's inbox. 'Project Veritas intends to release a video that contains comments made by you to a Project Veritas journalist,' it read. 'Below are some of those quotes. We appreciate any consideration for comment by 8 p.m.' He knew about Project Veritas. He felt panic, then humiliation. The EPA press office received an identical email and request for comment. Within minutes, Efron received a call from his boss. He realized he had been set up. Advertisement His boss at the EPA was mostly concerned for Efron but sent the video to the agency's ethics department for review. It cleared Efron of any wrongdoing or violations. 'Instead, this situation appears to be an unfortunate reminder about the social media bubble we live in now,' Justina Fugh, director of EPA's ethics office, wrote in an email to Efron. 'Remember that my team and I are here to provide you with ethics advice when you need it. Until then, hang in there, Brent.' He tried to hang in there. He called some close friends and then his parents in Massachusetts to tell them what happened and get their support. He strengthened the privacy settings on his social media. But Musk posted the video on X to his 221 million followers, and the onslaught came. Strangers found his cell number, though he still doesn't know how. Their voicemail messages, teeming with obscenities, called him 'scumbag' and 'American traitor.' 'We want our stolen tax dollars back, you disgusting criminal,' someone on Instagram messaged him. 'By the way, Trump is your president again.' A month later, Efron left the EPA in January, hoping the worst was behind him. An Interview With the Feds 'Huge news! Our awesome team @EPA just located BILLIONS of dollars worth of 'gold bars' that the Biden Admin threw 'off the titanic.'' The post on Advertisement 🚨🚨🚨Huge news! Our awesome team Big update coming tomorrow… — Lee Zeldin (@epaleezeldin) That brought a fresh torrent of abuse, Efron said. By that point, he had loosened the privacy settings on his LinkedIn account to look for a new job. People found him there — some not even bothering to hide their identities. Most of the attackers took aim at Efron's sexual identity. 'Any hope you had of infiltrating the government with your tyrannical and sick LGBTQ agenda is now FINISHED,' one person wrote. 'Time to ramp up that rainbow résumé.' Then came the knocks on his door. Efron was still in bed the morning of Feb. 21 when two people from the EPA's office of the inspector general asked if they could come in to ask some questions. 'I asked them, do I have to answer them?' Efron recalled. They said he did not and left their business cards. He spent the rest of the day finding a lawyer. Mark Zaid, who specializes in representing people who work in national security and is suing the founder of Project Veritas in connection with a different undercover video, is representing Efron pro bono. On Feb. 24, Efron came back from a run to find more business cards in his door. This time, an FBI agent had written, 'please give me a call I would like to speak to you,' on the back. A few days later, at Zaid's office, Efron sat for questioning. Two FBI agents were in the room. So was a prosecutor with the U.S. attorney's office. Two investigators from the EPA's inspector general's office were on speakerphone. 'On the one hand, I had nothing to hide, and I just told them the truth, but it was really scary,' he said. 'I mean, this whole thing was stemming from me saying something that's been taken of context and twisted,' he said. 'I also was scared of the exact same thing happening again.' Feigning Amazement The Project Veritas video of Efron fits a pattern. During the Biden administration, the outfit released a string of surreptitiously recorded videos of young, mostly male federal workers, breezily complaining about dysfunction in their departments or about policies with which they disagreed. Most appear to be filmed in bars or restaurants. In many of the videos, a male voice can be heard behind the hidden camera, alternately gushing ('Amazing!' fawned Brady when Efron said he worked on climate change) or asking probing questions. 'Mr. Efron openly described his experience 'throwing gold bars off the Titanic' at Biden's EPA to our journalist in his own words,' Project Veritas said in a written statement. 'If he disagrees with Project Veritas' reporting, he should reflect on his own statements, as we published his words as the story.' Zeldin's office, meanwhile, continues to maintain that Efron's 'gold bars' comment was an admission of government wrongdoing. 'This video started a public discourse about very real issues with the way the Biden administration lit tens of billions of tax dollars on fire,' his spokesperson, Molly Vaseliou, said in a statement. The administrator continues to maintain his zero tolerance policy for waste and abuse." Seeking a New Start Efron's D.C. apartment lease expired recently, and he is staying with friends until he figures out his next steps. He still has not found work and thinks employers fear they could become a target of the Trump administration if they hire him. Zaid said Efron has few concrete ways to hold Project Veritas accountable for the disruption in his life. In Washington, D.C., it is legal for a person to record their own conversation with someone else without consent. Efron has tentatively returned to dating apps. But background searches are now a must, and he tends to stick to meeting people with whom he has friends in common. He said he regrets his choice of words in the Project Veritas video but will not apologize for sharing his personal political opinions during what he thought was a private moment. 'I have so much regret that my words have been twisted to be used to go after all these programs as a sort of justification,' he said. 'I regret that I was not careful enough in vetting who I was talking to, and shouldn't have been talking about work. But I also think that what I said was something I should have been allowed to say.' This article originally appeared in .
The Hill
30-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Democrats need to break up with Randi Weingarten
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten recently resigned with great fanfare from the Democratic National Committee, part of a public rift with DNC Chair Ken Martin. Democratic leaders should thank Weingarten for her service, then lock the door behind her as she makes her way out. As one of the most powerful labor leaders in America, Weingarten was a key architect of the disastrous Biden-Harris pandemic school closures. Those closures managed to simultaneously erase two decades of learning progress for an entire generation of American children, while also eliminating Democrats' massive electoral advantage on the issue of education dating back to Bill Clinton. As a party leader, Weingarten gaslit Democrats into believing that the best response to the Republican free market smorgasbord of school choice with loosely regulated vouchers is to make sure there is no choice of any kind. To be clear, I am a former SEIU Local 721 member who strongly supports unions. I have worked in a Democratic White House and on five Democratic presidential campaigns. I am a big-government liberal. I just happen to believe that the purpose of government should be to serve people, not public employee unions like teachers unions, administrators unions, police unions and prison guard unions. That might sound like common sense, but those are fighting words in Weingarten's Democratic Party — something l learned firsthand as a dad during the pandemic school closures. I had a front row seat as Weingarten's affiliate, United Teachers Los Angeles, leveraged its school board majority to close Los Angeles schools for a year and a half, with its president defiantly declaring, 'There is no such thing as learning loss.' While United Teachers Los Angeles was ignoring learning loss, it was taking stands on far-flung issues like boycotting Israel years before the Gaza war. It was hardly reassuring to Jewish students like my daughters, isolating at home, to know that their own teachers didn't think our people should have a homeland. Weingarten's affiliate also wielded its considerable power to bully politicians and defiant parents into fealty during the school closures. When the closures started in March 2020, I began organizing with a group of Los Angeles Unified School District moms whose kids went to school with my daughters. In the beginning, we were just trying to figure out how to get through each day. But after weeks turned into months, we began organizing with parents from other Los Angeles Unified School District schools to get our great teachers back into the classroom. It would be an understatement to say that United Teachers Los Angeles didn't take kindly to that. Weingarten's affiliate initially opposed teaching over zoom. And while United Teachers Los Angeles trapped Los Angeles Unified School District students at home indefinitely, cut off from learning, they rooted their opposition to reopening schools in bizarre racial ideology, not science. By August 2021, the Los Angeles Unified School District's president was describing parents advocating for reopening (some of whom were Persian Jews) as 'wealthy, white, Middle Eastern' stalkers. She commissioned a 'racial profiling study' opposition researching families organizing to reopen schools, and endorsed a social media post characterizing reopening schools as 'white supremacist thinking' with: 'right on!' Right on? Unfortunately, those aren't the musings of a fringe gadfly. That's the leadership of today's Democratic Party which has driven American democracy into a ditch. These Los Angeles Unified School District parents encountered endless Kafkaesque roadblocks erected by Weingarten's union. And as it happened, I watched a group of smart progressive parents I'd been organizing with transform into Trump voters. one-by-one. It was like a real-time focus group of the damage Weingarten and her allies were doing to my party's credibility. Similar stories played out in blue cities across the country, as the historic Democratic advantage on education melted away. With leaders like Weingarten, it is not surprising Democrats haven't had a robust debate since the Obama administration about how to build an abundant education agenda to translate 'high quality public schools' from a soundbite into a civil right for all Americans. The party that invented public charter schools under Bill Clinton, then scaled them under Barack Obama, can't even say 'charter school' in mixed company under Randi Weingarten, without whispering and peeking to check who might be listening. Kamala Harris talked about choice and freedom in every campaign speech, but never about schools. That wasn't an oversight — it was by design. While the consequences of Weingarten's leadership have been tragic for American children, the implications are also devastating for a Democratic Party struggling to regain credibility with working class voters. Here's a lesson plan for my party: Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won because they had the guts to challenge party orthodoxy on behalf of the American people. Democrats like Harris — along with every nominee since Walter Mondale who lost in the general election — ran as avatars of party orthodoxy and offshored education policymaking to Weingarten and the teachers unions. You do the math. Democrats became the party of public education because they had the courage to fight for it. That courage is needed again today — to challenge failed leaders, stand with parents, take back power and fight for democracy. Ben Austin is a Democratic Party insider, former staffer for Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential campaign and founding director of Education Civil Rights Now.
