The head of one of the nation’s largest teachers unions is back to calling conservatives “fascists” and “authoritarians” and making comparisons to “nazis” just days after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated.
President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Randi Weingarten ran an excerpt of her new book “WHY FASCISTS FEAR TEACHERS: Public Education and the Future of Democracy” in Rolling Stone on Tuesday. The article airs her often trot-out claims painting concerned parents and conservatives as fascists for cracking down on DEI materials, gender ideology indoctrination, and pornography in schools.
Here are a few lines from her book, per Rolling Stone:
“Democracy is people power. But fascists want one leader or a small group of elites to have all the power. And that is what’s happening in the United States right now — with billionaire Trump having enabled his shadow governing partner Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in the world, to act as his co-president.”
“Authoritarians actively attack truth, knowledge, and critical thinking because an uninformed public is easier to control. Degrading public education and critical thinking skills may only prime more Americans to not recognize disinformation and misinformation and take authoritarian leaders like Trump at their word.”
“In other words, those inclined to support authoritarianism exhibit a general avoidance of or allergy to critical thinking. And authoritarians like it that way.”
“It makes me wonder whether far-right extremists are trying to deliberately inculcate an anti-critical thinking, pro-authoritarian disposition by undermining public education.”
“And what do fascists do when they’re worried that students might learn about the truth on their own? They ban books. Book bans are a very old and deeply disturbing tactic that, frankly, I never thought we’d see with such horrifying scope and scale in our country…This has profoundly disturbing precedents. In March 1933, an election consolidated Hitler’s power. Two months later, Nazis ransacked the Institute for Sexual Science, a pioneering medical center that studied gender and sexuality. The institute advocated for queer rights. Nazis removed all of the books from the institute — 20,000 books in total — for the first book burning in the Nazi regime. Book burning is part of a broader fascist pattern of attacking knowledge, freedom of information, and critical thinking.”
Weingarten’s article was published as far-left Democrats continue to essentially victim-blame conservatives for the horrific shooting death of 31-year-old Kirk, calling for divisive rhetoric to be turned down, even as people on the left cheer for his murder in droves and suggest Kirk deserved his fate.
Weingarten still relentlessly peppered her published excerpts with some of the same politically charged terms Kirk’s alleged assassin, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, carved into bullet casings. One of Robinson’s messages was “Hey fascist! Catch!,” and the authorities have since uncovered that Robinson was a radical leftist who was in a romantic relationship with a man who identifies as transgender.
Weingarten previously appeared to repost a graphic on X with the caption “This seems important to state” claiming Robinson was right-wing. She has since deleted the post saying: “I have deleted because some on the right thought it was a false flag. I hear you; I want to be responsive so I deleted. Political violence must be condemned, and we all must de-escalate.”
At the same time, teachers across the country — individuals whom parents have entrusted to instruct their children — have been fired or put on leave for posting to social media celebrating Kirk’s death (see here, here, here, here, here, and here).
Weingarten was notably one of the primary forces pushing the federal government to keep schools closed during the pandemic, which has resulted in catastrophic learning losses. The AFT, along with the National Education Association (NEA), has dumped a combined $43.5 million into left-wing groups since 2022, according to a watchdog report.
