DeVos appointment is central part of Trump's coup. Say 'NO'!

Alaskans gathered outside U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s Anchorage office urging her to oppose the nomination of Betsy DeVos as education secretary Monday. (Bill Roth / Alaska Dispatch News)

Unless the vote is postponed, today is the day of decision on Betsy DeVos. There are many reasons to oppose the appointment of right-wing billionaire DeVos, from her ignorance of and disdain for public education, her extremism in pushing privatization and "choice" (privately-managed charters and vouchers) to her imposition of religious fundamentalism into the schools, crossing the constitutional separation of church and state.

But more importantly, the DeVos appointment, along with the rest, should be seen as part and parcel of the Trump/Bannon/corporatist/white nationalist coup d'etat. This is not simply a matter of her competence as an administrator or policy adviser to the president.

Senate Democrats, who've been rendering unto Caesar on previous Trump appointments, appear to have united in opposition to DeVos. It's about time. But it's unlikely that they will pick up enough Republican votes to stop her.

Therefore, building the resistance movement to save and transform public education remains the charge of teachers, unions, parents, students, civil rights groups and community activists as it was under the Duncan-led D.O.E.. Only this time around, the stakes are even higher.
#Resist

CREDO Action said Monday that 1.45 million people had signed a petition urging the Senate to block DeVos' nomination.

Why Trump will fail... Former Bush State Dept. guy, Eliot Cohen, writes in the Atlantic,

 He will fail most of all because at the end of the day most Americans, including most of those who voted for him, are decent people who have no desire to live in an American version of Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, or Viktor Orban’s Hungary, or Vladimir Putin’s Russia.