Shards, Threads, and Nails

On May 16, a sea of red-clad teachers descended upon our legislative building to give voice to the frustration many across the state share about the drastic cuts to public education since the Republican super-majority all but hijacked democracy. These cuts are so deep and at times punitive that they seem part of an ideological assault on the very idea of public education rather than some sort of economic prudence claimed by GOP leadership. In the person of Betsy DeVos we see this ideology nakedly espoused on the national stage. Gutting public schools in favor of for-profit charters, Christian private schools, and homeschooling has been her life's work, aided and abetted by her family's billions. She and the NCGA GOP are following a playbook much in the manner of how the Koch brothers systematically attack attempts to address climate change. Meanwhile, the Cambridge Analytica scandal has revealed how compromised our personal data is, and to what lengths political operatives

Today the New York Times published an op-ed by Ross Douthat, one of several conservative commentators who have poked the eye from time to time of the paper of record's mostly liberal readership. Setting aside the question of whether the Times is a Nazi publication, accusations of which abound on Twitter, I want to focus for now on Douthat's arguments. My subscription is safe, mainly because I believe in the wall separating news from opinion, and because, like it or not, the Times will continue to be an important national voice. Douthat's piece is premised on a faulty notion: that there are immigration restrictionists who are not bigots. There may be some handful of people for which this may be true, but one only need take a cursory listen to the braying voices leading this charge, people like Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter. We should never forget the outright lies that launched Trump's campaign. Mexico sends its worst. Mexicans are rapists. The tropes trotted out a