"I’m hardly the first to worry that states racing to enact ever more insane incursions on educational freedom and a teacher’s right to speak and book bans are destined to end in reprisals and mass resignations and bounty schemes and threats of violence.
At this point, I must assume that such vigilantism is the point.
Parents are frayed and starved for leadership. Some leaders have
realized that the inflaming of tensions around masks garners votes. The
problem is it also destabilizes government authority. Youngkin didn’t
just turn student against student, parent against parent, or pit
principals against educators and states against federal rules with the
stroke of a pen the day he was sworn in. He personally modeled contempt
for authority—he encouraged it and rewarded it. He did so in the full
knowledge that he was essentially deputizing furious parents to follow
only the kinds of laws they liked and conscripting their kids into
participating..." -- Dahlia Lithwick, in Slate, on the crisis Virginia's Trump- in- a- fleece- vest Gov. Glenn Youngkin has wrought in the state's public schools since taking office just a week ago. The anti- mask mandate is just one example of the chaotic rush to the far right that's been the hallmark of Youngkin's fledgling administration so far, as Lithwick details. Good read.
Elections have consequences.
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