WEBVTT - Constitutional Law Professor Reacts 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:05.600 All media. 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:10.399 This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Last 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:13.079 week I was working on an essay about how the 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:16.680 Trump administration is trying to shut down the Department of Education. 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.720 Now very quickly that project expanded to being about how 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.800 Elon Musk is actually trying to internally coop the federal 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:29.520 government and become the CEO of the United States. That 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.040 article is now published on Shatterzone dot substack dot com 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:36.239 and is also the previous episode of this podcast. But 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:40.080 during my research I talked with law professor Derek Black 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:43.879 about the Department of Education, the state of disunion in 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:48.960 the country, and if we still have a democracy Already, 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:51.760 some of the things we talked about have begun to happen, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:56.040 like Republicans introducing legislation to expanding executive power while Trump 0:00:56.080 --> 0:00:59.040 and Musk flirt with denying the authority of the courts. 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.600 I decided to publish the full interview because I believe 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.360 his perspective is still helpful and the conversational format alters 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.520 the way we process information compared to me just reading 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:15.160 a kind of depressing essay for forty minutes. So, without 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.120 further ado, here is the interview. 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.960 I'm Derek Black. I'm a professor of law at the 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.800 University of South Carolina. My area focuses on education law 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.399 and policy and really sort of how that relates to democracy. 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:31.000 But I teach constitutional law and courses like that. Author 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.000 of a couple of books Schoolhouse Burning, Public Education, and 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.800 the Assault on American Democracy, and then more recently Dangerous 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.039 Learning the South long War on Black literacy. 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.200 Let's start by discussing what's going on at the Department 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:45.920 of Education right now, and maybe let's actually start a 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:49.639 little bit further back. Attacks on the Department of Education, 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:54.400 like are not new. Reagan famously kind of pioneered the 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:57.360 rights focus on this, but it's been something they've struggled 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.600 to deal sizable blows against, especially in terms of wanting 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.200 to abolish the organization. Could you talk about like the 0:02:04.280 --> 0:02:07.280 history of conservative attacks against the Department. 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.799 Yeah, I mean, you know, there's always been this states 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:15.240 rights issue that's been with America since its founding. Obviously 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:17.079 was a big part of the Civil War, big part 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.040 of the Civil rights movement, you know, a big part 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:21.960 of the Affordable Healthcare Act debate. So you always have 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.400 this stage rights argument going on, and at least amongst 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.639 the folks that are worried about that public education comes 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.840 up as being a target because there's this argument always that, well, 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:35.760 education is not in the federal constitution, so what business 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:37.880 does the federal government have to be involved? And so 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.679 it's really more of a talking point as opposed to 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.040 any particular substantive reason why they want to get rid 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.240 of it. But that's really where it's come from. But 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.360 you know, it's often been not that serious of a critique, 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.560 but obviously it's gotten very serious here in the last 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:53.520 couple of weeks. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.040 Yeah, that's the general overall feeling I'm having is that 0:02:57.360 --> 0:02:59.840 there's a lot of things going on that I would 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:04.040 have previously thought are kind of like pipe dreams. Calls 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.919 to abolish the Department of Education, even this rallying call 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:09.560 from the new right in the past few years to 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:12.720 like abolish the FBI, general claims of you know, like 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.600 draining the swamp, these types of like old it's almost 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.320 like stereotypical claims that now through musk they've been able 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.120 to like weasel their way into actually dismantling like large, 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.919 large systems that make the everyday functionality of the government possible. 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:31.320 What should people know, right, now about the current attacks 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:35.360 in the Department of Education. Trump is still allegedly drafting 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.520 in executive order. He'll probably have to work through Congress, 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.200 but we'll see the degree to which he even needs 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.920 to do that. What are you worried about, like right now? 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:45.880 And what do you think people should know about like 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.400 the current the current attacks on the dewy. 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.280 Well, there's the sort of immediate worries and then there's 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.800 the larger worries. The immediate worries I'll have to say, 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.080 I'm not terribly worried about. I mean, if you look 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.080 at the reporting that we've seen, it is interesting that 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.080 the White House seems to distinguish between the things that 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:07.400 it can do unilaterally right without Congress, and those things 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.240 that would need Congress. And I mean, it's a weird 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:14.800 silver lining, but that gives me like some like measure 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:18.920 of comfortability in this weird, bizarre world, only because you know, 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:23.040 two weeks ago the administration was willing to do things 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.480 that it had no authority to do, right, just sort 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.960 of his claiming authority to do everything. And so there 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.799 is this at least recognition that there's not unbounded power. 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.760 So that's sort of the immediate threat is not that 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:39.560 huge because the White House, Trump's power over the Department 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.600 or to close it up is relatively narrow, Like most 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.760 of the department is established by statute, and he can't 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.159 just dissolve things or move things around that are created 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.559 by statute. He can't take money that's for poor kids 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:52.200 and spend them on vouchers. Right, these things you know, 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:56.440 the law dictates. And the fact that he's implicitly acknowledging, 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.760 or rather his advisors or you know, implicitly acknowledging they 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:01.440 need Congress has helped gives me a little bit of 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.520 comfort because I think that getting rid of the Department 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.400 is I'm not sure there's a majority in the House 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.520 for that, but there's certainly not a filibuster, you know, 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:13.080 sixty vote majority for that in the Senate. So that's 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.160 short term. But I think there's something far more disturbing 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.200 to me, and it's the long term, this sort of 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.800 idea that there's something illegitimate about the federal role in education, 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.720 that there's something illegitimate about public education itself. Those are 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:30.560 very dangerous ideas. And I have a piece that just 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.960 came out yesterday and Slate that says Look, you know, 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.720 the federal role in public education predates the Constitution itself. 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.560 You know, probably no one, not many listeners, probably familiar. 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.440 I ever heard of the Northwest Ordinances of seventeen eighty 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:46.719 five and seventeen eighty seven. But before we even had 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.039 a United States Constitution, this foundational document laid out how 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.920 are territory is going to become states, And without going 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:58.400 through all the details, Congress embeds public education and the 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:00.719 very fabric of what it means to be a state 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:05.040 before we even have a constitution. And so that's very important. 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:06.800 Is where we start. At the end of the Civil War, 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:10.599 right where we almost lost our democracy. Congress, as a 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.280 condition of readmitting Southern states into the Union, says that 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.960 one of the terms of readmission is that you create 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.039 public education system and you never take those rights away, right, 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:23.200 forcing public education into the South in places where it 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:25.880 never had been before. You know, people are more familiar 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.080 with the civil rights movement. So I won't go through 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.640 all that, but just to take one more pause, I mean, 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:36.320 Congress created a Department of Education in eighteen sixty seven, 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:40.239 right to get this public education project off the ground. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.599 So this isn't some wild new sort of fantasy of 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.320 liberals or unions that we need a department so that 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.200 we can hand over the spoils to teachers. This is 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.279 an idea about what it means to have democracy in America, 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.320 and public education is a centerpiece of that, and the 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.920 federal government has been pushing it for two hundred and 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.680 fifty years. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.400 How do you think that relates to the administration's attempts 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.280 to centralize executive power? Though, Like, if you look at 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:10.720 like what happened with you said, right, this agency that 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.080 has been has been in tried in law that may 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:17.840 not be legally abolished now, but they've been effectively abolished, 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:19.960 Like all the employees are on leave, it's been hallowed out. 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:24.440 It essentially no longer exists. I feel like they're trying to, 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:28.000 at the very least test the bare limits of executive 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:32.240 power and bypass Congress when they can. Part of my 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.640 fear is like Congress is not willing to fight them 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.200 on that. Seemingly like they're not willing to call them 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:42.560 on that. They're almost willing to acquiesce their like appropriation's 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.160 ability as well as you know, the ability to have 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.640 actually have to like remove departments from existence or create 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:49.200 new ones. 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:51.920 Yeah, so you're picking up on a thread that's much 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:56.160 bigger than a department. Right, So when Congress is willing 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:58.800 to hand the keys over to the president, then we 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.760 no longer really have have you know, a democracy, or 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.000 at least the constitutional democracy that was created you know, 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.800 a couple of centuries ago here in which the president 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.600 executes the law. The president doesn't make the law right, 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:14.640 Congress funds programs, not the executive. But if if ultimately 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.640 Congress is going to shift all that authority over like that, 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.560 that's a dangerous place for democracy to be. There are 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.760 no checks anymore. So I think what you're raising up 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.080 is the fear that there aren't any checks in place. 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.160 You know, Fortunately, there still is a legal apparatus. I mean, 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:34.120 even if Congress isn't standing up shouting and complaining, it's 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:36.600 still the case the president can't just do whatever he wants, 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.720 and hopefully the courts, you know, would would step in. 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.319 I use the word hopefully. I think courts will step 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.440 in to limit his ability to do things that go 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.600 beyond to statutory power. So the bigger danger, I think 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:53.720 is that through law itself, Congress seedes more and more 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.360 power to the president with a new legislation. So if 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.280 Congress were to pass new legislation giving the president more 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:02.720 centralized power, well that would be a concerning thing to me. 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:05.240 Let me just stop and we'll get to your next question. 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:05.480 To go. 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.679 But we have a larger phenomenon. It's just it's not 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.480 just about Trump, and people don't necessarily realize this. I mean, look, 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.439 I don't think that President Obama was a dictator or 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.760 had authoritarian tendencies. I was part of the Obama Biden 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:23.560 transition team, but I testified against Arnie Duncan in a 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.200 case or against the United States Department of Education in 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.880 twenty twelve or fourteen or something like that, because the 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.760 department was taking power that it clearly did not have 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.600 in regard to a no Child Left Behind waivers. And 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:38.080 you know, I told the current administration, as much as 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.160 I hate it, right, I wish we could just wipe 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.520 away student debt. I feel bad for my students who 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.080 have huge debt. But I said, it is beyond the 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.400 president's power to just wipe away all this debt, and 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.160 they did it. Anyway. The real point here is that 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.640 both Democrats and Republicans have been asking things of their 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.559 presidents that their presidents don't have the power to do, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.839 and their presidents are doing it any right, And it's 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:04.800 because our Congress is broken. Our Congress isn't doing its job. 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.800 So citizens are demanding that our presidents do things that 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:09.040 they really don't have the power to do. 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:11.880 And that's like the big thing that I'm concerned about 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:13.760 is we talk about these things that presidents are not 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:16.960 quote unquote like allowed to do. And I feel like 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.640 like both Trump and Muskre now are are speed running 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.600 like the limits of executive power, and they are willing 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:24.880 to test the boundaries a little bit, a little bit 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:28.920 more than previous presidents, and they're willing to break the 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:33.679 government temporarily to like their goals be enacted. And at 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.960 a certain point, it's really tricky when the thing that 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.160 you always hear is, you know, like hopefully the courts 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.480 will step in, hopefully they'll do something if things get 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:45.320 really bad, who will like literally stop them in terms 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.960 of like the courts told them to halt the funding freeze, 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.480 and there is there's still grants that they are refusing 0:10:50.520 --> 0:10:54.040 to issue that were already approved legally need to be 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.800 followed through on that they are still withholding and it's 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.040 it's really frightening when it comes down to like basic 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:02.760 level of like is there are people military police who 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:05.960 will enforce this that things get really bad. That's something 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.480 I don't have like complete confidence in anymore. 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.400 Well, you know, I deal with this every year at 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.760 the beginning of my constitutional law class. Right, this is 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:18.280 not a new problem. It seems more real and frightening, 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:19.680 but it's not a new problem. And so what I 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.320 tell my constitutional law students is that the rule of 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:28.040 law doesn't exist because of courts. Right, it doesn't exist 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:30.920 because of police officers. Right, that the rule of law, 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:33.760 when push comes to shove, exists in the hearts and 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:38.360 minds of Americans, and if they don't believe in it, 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.680 all is lost. Right. So, for when Brown versus Board 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.480 of Education was decided, it was reportedly the case that 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.120 the President said, you know, if the court wants to 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.400 desegregate schools, let it do it itself. Because guess what, 0:11:52.400 --> 0:11:56.120 what's the Supreme Court. It's nine old people in one 0:11:56.160 --> 0:12:00.720 building with a handful of capitol police do anything. They 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:02.959 don't have a power to do anything. Right, So our 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.960 entire system really rests on good faith, or, as I 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.560 tell my students, like what if due to something, you know, 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.080 President Trump or Biden or whoever had done, the Federal 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:19.120 District Court issued an order directing US Marshals to take 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.040 President Trump into a custody. So that order goes out, 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:25.400 the marshals receive it, they march over to the White House, 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:27.600 they come in the door, and they say, we are 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.600 here to take the president. Signed and it's already been 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.559 fast tracked by Supreme Court, signed by the Supreme Court. 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.440 The answer to whether we'll just use Biden, the answer 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.560 to whether President Biden is escorted out of the White 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.360 House by US marshals is not a function of military 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.480 It's not a function of police power. It's a function 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.360 of when that piece of paper is held up, does 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:55.160 the secret Service member believe that the rule of law 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:58.920 exceeds his loyalty to the man standing behind him. Yeah, 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.080 that's where it's at, right, And so you know, it 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:04.640 really is a good faith litmus test. And I think 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.400 we used to live in an era when I think 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:12.080 we all had maybe more faith in the idea that 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.480 people put fidelity and commitment to the Constitution and the 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:19.360 law above personal loyalty. But we increasingly live in a 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.839 congress and in a world, in a situation when it 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:36.000 seems that people put personal loyalty above the constitution at times. 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.320 JD. Vance was interviewed on a far right podcast about 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:45.400 like two or three years ago, and he expressed desire 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.719 for what he called a quote unquote dewocification program. Jah like, 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:54.199 sounds silly, but this is basically happening now. He extrapolated 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.520 and said, quote, I think Trump is going to run 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:58.840 again in twenty twenty four. I think what Trump should 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:01.320 do if I was giving him one piece of advice, 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.199 fire every single mid level bureaucrat, every civil servant in 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.200 the administrative state. Replace them with our people. And when 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.679 the courts stop, you stand before the country and say, 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.000 the Chief Justice has made his ruling, now let him 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.240 enforce it. And I feel like we're getting closer and 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:20.960 closer to this scenario. 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.240 I'm sorry, where did JD. Vance make this statement at 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:24.920 what context? 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:28.680 On Jack Murphy's podcast Jack Murphy is like a farret commentator. 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.640 Vance is invoking the political philosophy of Curtis Jarvin, who's 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.960 becoming increasingly popular in the new Right. While lots of 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.320 what must and Trump, by extension, have been doing the 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:42.200 past few weeks. Is taken pretty directly out of Curtis 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.720 Yarvin's playbook for seizing executive power. And I feel like 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.760 we're getting closer and closer to this, and so much 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.120 of what's happening in various agencies it is about proving 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.080 loyalty to Trump so that if there is some kind 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:59.120 of constitutional confrontation, people side with him. Doge is basically 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:04.200 installing loyalty tests and running through communications to like see 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.080 what the loyalty to Trump is for different levels of 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:12.000 administrative employees the FBI are negotiations to stay on but 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.360 only if they can prove their loyalty to the president. 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.080 And like, it's all of these scenarios that again, like 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:21.440 originally would be kind of far fetched. When you're hearing 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.360 someone like Jdvans talk about this a few years ago 0:15:24.440 --> 0:15:26.920 on some like right wing podcast. That's one thing to 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.640 watch this like happen in real time. For people like 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:31.720 me who study like this type of like more like 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.640 esoteric far right political theory, it's kind of surreal to 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:37.680 watch the type of thing that you've been like writing 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.560 about and thinking about, like on background for years now happen. 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.360 I just kind of rambled there. But do you have 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:46.680 any like, I guess, thoughts on like this idea that 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.360 like Vance is talking about in terms of like creating 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:50.960 this constitutional crisis. 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:56.280 Well, I mean, look, I tend to be I tend 0:15:56.280 --> 0:15:58.760 to be the guy in the room that says, let's 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:02.720 not let's not overreact, let's let's see what happens. You 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.160 know that there's a lot of you know, institutional history, 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.960 and there's a lot of Americans who I think the 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.040 majority are good and decent people, and they don't they 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.800 don't want authoritarianism. So this this is me right, this 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.600 is my predisposition. But a week or so ago I 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.800 had a huge crisis of confidence, shall we say. There 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.240 were just a few events in the news that I 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.800 was just like, I just never thought that this would 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.640 happen in America. I never thought a governor would I mean, 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:33.360 some of this was what governors were doing. I never 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:35.280 thought a governor would do that. I never thought a 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:37.160 president would do that. I just never thought, you know, 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:39.280 never thought, never thought. And so I said to myself, 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.520 you know, are any of my opinions or projections, you know, 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:46.920 valid anymore? Because I'm the guy who never thought. And 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.120 so that was that was you know, that was a 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:51.560 tough twenty four hours for me. I'll have to say. So, 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.960 you know, I don't know if like I just rebooted 0:16:55.280 --> 0:17:00.120 and for self sanity and move forward, or you know, know, 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.680 whether there is still some truth and reason to believe 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.520 in certain stability. And I mean, I will say this, 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.880 you know, as we started this conversation, the fact that 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.560 the White House is conceding that it can't do everything 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:15.719 to the Department of Education that it wants to do 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:18.960 without Congress is a good thing. If you read the 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:23.399 five executive orders or for however many they've already issued there, 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.680 it's a good thing that actually, if you read them carefully, 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:32.560 it's mostly directing appointees to think about stuff, not actually 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.720 do stuff, but to think about stuff. And of course 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:39.280 the president can appoint them to think about stuff. If 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.760 they do the stuff they're thinking about, that becomes a problem. 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.040 But again, it is this sort of like can I 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.560 grab a headline about what would sound like an awful 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:50.240 you know, reality, But really all I've done is type 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:52.560 of to think about that reality. You know, that gives 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:58.159 me some faith, right, And notwithstanding the fact that this 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.480 United States Supreme Court, you know, granted an immunity to 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.840 all presidents that I never could have imagined. You know, 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.800 this court does, you know, issue opinions that surprise us 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.760 every single term, and they line up with the rule 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.960 of law. It's just it's unpredictable to some extent which 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.399 which opinions those are going to be. So I have 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.800 this faith, you know, these sort of pieces of of 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:26.239 the puzzle that still suggests we're still democracy and are 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:28.679 going to remain one. But you know, I have I 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:30.720 have my really bad days. I think, like you know, 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:32.200 I think a lot of people have a bad day 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:33.840 every day right now. It's you know, I just feel 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.000 thankful minor mineor fewer and further between than others. And 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:39.399 maybe that's just psychological coping. I don't know. 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.680 Let's let's I guess close. We're talking about disunion and 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.400 and how that relates to the general feeling I think 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:58.760 a lot of people are experiencing around the country as 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.240 well as you know, linking back again to the attacks 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:02.320 on the Department of Education. 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.000 Yeah, I spent a pretty good deal of time on 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.520 this disunion question in my new book, Dangerous Learning, because 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:12.360 I'm most of that book is focused on the three 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:14.879 decades leading up to the Civil War, so that like 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.680 the Civil War doesn't just happen overnight, it happens over 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.119 the course of late eighteen twenties to the eighteen sixty 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:24.040 with the South is saber rattling over and over again 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.840 openly talking about disunion. Right, so that you had a 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:30.199 South that actually was diverse in lots of ways in 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.560 its opinions about various things. I'm not going to say 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.879 that that there were a bunch of abolitionis, but there 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:39.359 was a manumissioned society in North Carolina in eighteen twenty 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:43.480 nine that had I think sixteen hundred members. Right. The 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.680 very idea of sixteen hundred you know, anti slavery advocates 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:50.000 in North Carolina the eighteen twenties is shocking to a 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:53.119 lot of people, right, But ten years later, only twelve 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:55.080 people show up to the final meeting, right, So you 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:57.520 had something that changed there, right, And so you have 0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.520 this sort of period of escalating disunion and censorship and 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:07.439 propaganda and sort of policing what is publicly you know, 0:20:07.960 --> 0:20:11.479 acceptable commentary in the South. All this stuff is happening 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.520 sort of going in and you know, editing, their sort 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.720 of censoring textbooks, you know, demanding that books only be 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:19.760 written by Southerners, like, oh, I make it go on 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:21.199 and on and on. We don't have time for it. 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:25.200 What I point out, though, in my analysis of what's 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.760 going on, you know right now over the last few 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.280 years of education, is that there are a lot of 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.919 policies that are attacking public education in the way that 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:37.720 they previously had, And a lot of them are symbolic 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:43.240 of disunion instincts, right, sort of just sort of anti government, right, 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.960 anti sort of whatever the current culture is. And then 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.919 there's actually policies that I argue are facilitating disunion. And 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:53.040 one of those that I talk about is our public 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.240 school voucher. I say, private school vouchers. You are so 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:00.919 upset with you're so raging at the public school system 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:03.679 that we need private school vouchers, right, and we are 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:09.600 effectively paying, We're going to pay individuals to leave the 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.560 public school system. And I call this a coded call 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.399 for disunion, even if people don't think that's what they're doing. 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.600 If we look back at where we started this conversation, 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:22.320 which is institution of public education as something upon which 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.160 American democracy has been built, of course it has lots 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:27.400 of flaws and it wasn't perfect, but it's been part 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.920 of how we build a democracy. It's always been a 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:34.360 bipartisan project. Now becoming the thing that we rage against, 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:36.680 now becoming the thing in which we are going to 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:41.879 finance exit from right, This is a step towards disunion 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:46.920 from a fundamental institution of American democracy. What happens to 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:51.320 us if they actually execute on that plan. I shudder 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:53.760 to think about where we might be, because it's not 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.760