CURMUDGUCATION: Uplift Checklist For a Dispiriting Day

CURMUDGUCATION: Uplift Checklist For a Dispiriting Day:

Uplift Checklist For a Dispiriting Day

Honestly, my expectations are always so low that it's hard to really disappoint me, and this day was no exception. Defeating DeVos depended on finding a GOP senator who was willing to separate himself from his senate pack and also piss off a President known for his unreasoning grudgeholding rage in the first days of a new administration whose main goal seems to be sorting the people of the world into "kindling" and "marshamallows." A 24-hour parade of speechifying Democrats wasn't going to shake that imaginary GOPster loose; today went down pretty much as I expected.

Still, many of my colleagues are pretty bummed. "This just seems so bad. So just really so bad. What do we hold onto." So I'm going to try to rein in my usual bloviation and just give you a list. This. This is why you don't have to totally despair.

* We have company. A whole lot of company. When we go off on our next rant about the assault on public education, a whole lot of people will no longer look at us like we're nuts. We have company, and that means we have help.

* The Trump-DeVos administration means that our national unions no longer need to play nice in hopes that they'll get a seat at the table. No more of this, "Shhh. Try to be polite" shit that we had when Arne Duncan was in office. These guys aren't Democrats, and the union doesn't have to pretend to get along.

* The reformy coalition is all splintery. Pretend reform Democrats can no longer pretend that their preferred policies are not conservative orthodoxy. The in fighting may or may not help, but it will at least be entertaining.

* Despite the depictions of her as clueless, DeVos is better known as a hard-nosed political street fighter. Between her ignorance and her bare-knuckles gracelessness, we will not have to try to read the nuances to divine her goals and intent.

* We already know the territory. Five, six, ten years ago, when things started to unfold, lots of folks spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was really going on, if they saw what they thought they CURMUDGUCATION: Uplift Checklist For a Dispiriting Day: