Social

Justice Pedagogy Thesis

Our Education
System’s Role in the
Rise of the Trump Era

Joel-Lehi Organista
12-29-2016

Introduction

Donald Trump, United States President-elect claims he will “Make America Great Again.” That

slogan alone has resonated with many Americans and on the other hand has others puzzled on what

specific time period in America’s existence it has been “Great” for all communities. The moment the

results for presidential election were announced on the evening of November 8th, 2016, the rise of Trump

as just the Republican presidential nominee shifted drastically to the Trump Era. Within less than a month

from that day, the nation started to glimpse what the Trump Era will look like, from the numerous conflict

of interests, the unadvised diplomacy, tweets containing lies causing economic deficits, hate crimes and

violence erupting across the country, and each appointment to the executive branch with people just as

unqualified and anti-government as Trump. Yet, how did it get to the point where Donald Trump could

beat in landslide primaries with such ease against 11 other Republican presidential candidates? How did

overt racism, white supremacy or recently rebranded as the “alt-right,” come to be accepted again when

only a couple of years before the narratives was the US was in a post-racial society? It is important to

understand the rise of Trump and his supporters, in order to clearly understand how the Trump Era came

to be America’s next chapter in context of a global shift to anti-globalization.

Dissertation research by Matthew MacWilliams focusing on the correlation between support for

Trump and views aligned with authoritarianism brought to light what many political scientist did not

expect. The best and most reliable predictor of being a Trump supporter was how high you ranked in the

authoritarian scale (MacWilliams, 2016). Yet, some people have “latent authoritarian tendencies” that can

be “triggered” with the perception of social threats (Taub, 2016). However, knowing that Trump’s rise

through his supporters is because of the activation of authoritarians is the baseline of understanding why

we are where we are with a now “alt-right” demagogue fascist authoritarian perpetuating the neoliberal

agenda.

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Fig. I, War on Government (Bagley, 2016) Fig. II, Trump has picked (Grey, 2016)

Imagine how disconnected and unaligned to the public’s interests Trump must be to be appointing

individuals to his cabinet that not only have no government experience like him, but hate the very

agencies they will be leading (Jacobs, 2016). Betsy DeVos is President-elect’s pick for secretary of

education. She did not attend any public schools or send her children to them. Not only does she not have

any personal experiences as a student or parent of public schools, she has no experience teaching, running

a university, school system or state education agency, or even overseeing public education as an elected

official in any level. (Klein, 2016) The Trump Era is filled with compounding examples of how every

single aspect of society is affected.

So, how much of a Trump supporter is the United States Education System? This thesis will

examine the vital role the United States (US) Education System has on the rise of the Trump Era. After

examining the education system's role, it becomes clear that there are opportunities to dramatically shift

its impact towards building a democratic society with empowered empathic life-long learners. First, there

will be a review of what the rise of the Trump Era means by an in depth review of how Donald Trump is

both not a traditional Republican, he is un-American, how he is a fascist, and how his rise is correlated to

the worldwide anti-globalization energy. Second, the reframing of authoritarianism from psychological to

sociocultural will guide the analysis of the rise of the Trump Era. Third, the role of the US Education

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System in the rise of the Trump Era will be examined within the context of the closing era of

colorblindness and new era of neoliberalism hegemony. The education system’s role in producing

authoritarians and the activation of authoritarians will show clearly how deep the levels of appropriated

oppression and appropriated domination are in society. Lastly, these implications reinforce the vital role

education for liberation has using democratic, anti-oppressive, and anti-hegemonic education through

various critical pedagogy, and how restorative practices have the potential to address harm while being

proactive to developing empowered empathic life-long learners.

The Rise of the Trump Era

“Trump selling copies of art of the deal for $184 to raise money for campaign. Isn’t
worth paper it’s printed on. I should know: I wrote it.”
-(Schwartz, 2016)

On June 16, 2015, Donald J. Trump used an escalator inside his Trump Tower in New York City

to get on the stage to announce he was running for President of the United States of America. Literally

within two minutes of his announcement speech he said the following, “When Mexico sends its people,

they’re not sending their best...They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs.

They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” A month later he proposed that Mexico will pay for a great wall

between the US/Mexico border (Adams, 2016). By that time over 25 various celebrities, organization, and

companies cut ties with Trump, which included ESPN, NASCAR, Macy’s department store,

NBCUniversal, and Univision (Hongo, 2015). Yet, this did not slow down the rise of the Trump Era. In

July 2015, he also threatened the GOP he would run as an independent if he was not taken seriously

(Adams, 2016).

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 Figure 1. Donald the Trump (Bagley, 2015)

Un-American and Not a Traditional Republican

Before the first GOP presidential debate Donald Trump dismisses past Republican presidential

candidate Senator John McCain’s war record by saying, “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like

people that weren’t captured, OK?” (Adams, 2016) At the first GOP debate he raises his hand in front of

national television to not pledge he will support the GOP nominee if it is not him. After lots of criticism

he later signs the GOP loyalty pledge that month. A week before he throws out news anchor of Univision

Jorge Ramos from a press conference by saying “Go back to Univision”, he releases his immigration plan

of three central principles (Adams, 2016).

1. “A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.”

2. “A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system

of government must be enforced.”

3. “A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve

jobs, wages and security for all Americans.”

In 2015 also came out the new Star Wars film during the height of a strong presidential election

season. In Figure 1, Donald Trump is shown above as Jabba the Hutt who is one of the most powerful

gangsters in all of the Star Wars universe. He chokes the elephant that represents the GOP, which is also

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known as the US Republican Party. Jeb Bush, who was also running as a Republican presidential

candidate is trapped inside a glass container that has a big “T”, identifying it is owned by Donald Trump.

Even though he signed a GOP loyalty pledge, he did not hold back on anyone that he perceived as

competition or an enemy. The New York Times has a comprehensive list of the over 250 people, places,

and things Donald Trump has insulted on Twitter. By February 2016 the list took up over 33 pages front

and back of insults only since he started his race in June 2015. He insulted 11 of the Republican

presidential candidates, with Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio being the top of that list. Tweets

about these three men included the following, “lightweight”, “big loser”, “biggest liar in politics!”,

“nasty”, “weak”, “really pathetic”, and “hypocrite” (Lee & Quealy, 2016).

A month before Jeb Bush suspends his campaign, The National Review, which is a huge

conservative magazine comes out with a whole issue titled, “Against Trump”. Prominent conservatives

and leaders of the GOP start the issue with the editors writing, “Trump is a philosophically unmoored

political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in

favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones (Beck, 2016).” The whole issue points out

how Donald Trump is not a Republican. He does not follow their traditional values. This includes how he

has been married three times, statements about how he has supported LGBTQ rights before, he hires

undocumented immigrants, his economics ideas are not fiscally conservative with examples like building

a wall, and wanting big government with policies like banning people entering the country. Throughout

the GOP presidential debates and his tweets, he has not built any party unity by insulting the other

candidates. Even after Trump winning the GOP presidential nomination, Ted Cruz did not endorse him

during the Republican National Convention (RNC) and was booed off the stage (Schleifer, 2016).

Prominent GOP leaders and conservatives, including both past living Republican presidents did not attend

the RNC. A month after the RNC, over 100 top ranking Republicans urge the RNC to dump Trump in an

open letter. “We believe that Donald Trump’s divisiveness, recklessness, incompetence, and record-

breaking unpopularity risk turning this election into a Democratic landslide, and only the immediate shift

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of all available RNC resources to vulnerable Senate and House races will prevent the GOP from drowning

with a Trump-emblazoned anchor around its neck. (Bobic, 2016)”

Figure 2. Fear of Refugees (Zyglis, 2015)

For many lifelong conservatives and members of the GOP, the rise of the Trump Era showed two

important things. Their party had chosen an individual who is not Republican over their traditional values,

and that individual was un-American in the way he disregards the US Constitution. During the

Democratic National Convention (DNC), the parents of Humayun Khan, an Army captain who died in a

car bombing in 2004 in Iraq while trying to save other troops, stood on the stage to deliver a clear

message. Khizr Khan, the father of Humayun directed his address to Donald Trump with, “you’re asking

Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you: have you even read the United States

Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. [he pulls pocket sized US Constitution] In this document,

look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law’ (Staufenberg, 2016).” Sales for US constitutions

spiked across the country after this. He continued with, “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go

look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all

faiths, genders and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing and no one.”

Ironically, Trump’s response to Khan’s challenge was a complaint that Khan “has no right” to

criticize him like that. Yet, Mr. Khan has every right to literally say what he said, which is a right within

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the Constitution in Article I, “abridging the freedom of speech,” his son Humayun died defending. Both

GOP leaders in Congress, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell issued comments that week siding with the

Khans and condemning Trump (Benson, 2016). Trump’s response to Khan came into context in how he

had not read the Constitution and only uses the “free of speech” for his defence with his own outrageous

remarks. Not only from day one with his comments against Mexicans, but his proposal for “a complete

and total shutdown of Muslims entering the United States (Johnson, 2016).”

Figure 3. Trump Triumphant (Horsey, 2015)

Five months into Trump’s presidential campaign he proposes the literal ban of freedom of

religion. At the time, most of the competitors on the GOP side reproached his proposal calling it,

“unhinged,” “ridiculous,” and “downright dangerous” (Horsey, 2015). Even after being the Republican

presidential nominee, he is planning on expanding his Muslim ban, rather than rolling it back. Trump

explained in an interview, “Now, we have a religious, you know, everybody wants to be protected. And

that's great. And that's the wonderful part of our constitution. I view it differently. Why are we

committing suicide? Why are we doing it? But you know what? I live with our constitution. I love our

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constitution. I cherish our constitution. We're making it territorial. We have nations and we'll come out,

I'm going to be coming out over the next few weeks with a number of the places” (Johnson, 2016).

Trump’s constant attacks on Muslims and the freedom of religion in hand with immigrants has

even brought the Catholic church’s Pope Francis into the conversation. The Pope said, “a person who

thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian”

(Burke, 2016). Trump’s response was a classic ironic Trump response, “If and when the Vatican is

attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope

would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would

not have happened...For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a

Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike

what is happening now, with our current President” (Capehart, 2016). Trump’s hypocrisy of calling out

the Pope for questioning his own Christianity is revealed when he questions the current President of the

United State’s Christianity by calling him a Muslim and founder of ISIS (Kopan, 2016).

A month after the RNC, Mike Pence, Donald Trump's Vice President pick suggested in a radio

interview that the proposed ban on Muslims entering the US could be broadened to include other

religions, not just Muslims (Parker, 2016). Pence only suggested this days before Trump proposed his

next idea that would bring America back to it’s so called “Great” era. He proposed that the US needs to

administer an ideological test to visa applicants before allowing them to enter. This screening test, which

he labeled “extreme, extreme vetting,” is designed to keep out everyone he feels do not have “American

values” and are not prepared to “embrace a tolerant American society” (Tanfani, 2016). All of this is

again ironic to what he is proposing. Mr. Khan, who earlier challenged Trump to read the constitution,

“challenge[d] Trump to take the naturalization test with [him] any day (Bobic, 2016).”

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 Figure 4. Pope Francis Visits US (Wuerker, 2015)

With proposals that are precisely unconstitutional, various news outlets have called Trump out on

them. Nonetheless, once more Trump shows how unfamiliar he is with the constitution by tweeting, “It is

not ‘freedom of the press’ when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want

even if it is completely false (Trump, 2016)!” During the same month Pope Francis called him out, Trump

attacks the freedom of press by saying, “With me, [the press are] not protected, because I’m not like other

people…We’re gonna open up those libel laws, folks, and we’re gonna have people sue you like you

never get sued before (Haraldsson, 2016).” Not only does he say this, but he proves it throughout his

campaign by actually banning press at his events. There are officially six news outlets he has on his

blacklist: Univision, BuzzFeed, Politico, The Daily Beast, The Des Moines Register, and The Huffington

Post (Kludt & Stelter, 2016). Beyond banning press, he has insulted 22 media organizations through

Twitter including Fox News calling them “totally biased and disgusting reporting”, The Associated Press

as “having one of the worse reporters in the business”, The New York Times as “failing”, and The Wall

Street Journal as “bad at math, nobody cares what they say in their editorials anymore, especially me!”

(Lee & Quealy, 2016)

During the same month he promised to do something about the freedom of press, he earned as

much media coverage as both Ted Cruz and Hillary Clinton combined. Trump overall has had over $2

billion worth of free media within the first nine months of his campaign (Confessore & Yourish, 2016).

With all this coverage, Trump has many opportunities to prove to the public he is a real Republican and

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also wants to defend the Constitution as a true American. Yet, with each passing day it is more clear that

he is neither Republican and patriotic to the Constitution. For example, when he proposed an additional

unconstitutional element to his attack on Muslims. He “would certainly implement” as President of the

United States a database system to track Muslims. He suggested, “There should be a lot of systems,

beyond databases. We should have a lot of systems” (Hillyard, 2016). This plan for a religious focused

database quickly drew attention to Nazi comparisons.

Figure 5. Make America Nazi Again (2016) Figure 6. Unleashed (Hertenstein, 2016)

He is a Fascist

A viral tweet exposes how the rise and election of Trump make it clear of a serious deeply rooted

problem. “Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn’t a deal-breaker.

End of story.” (Gaba, 2016) “Make America Great Again” is Trump’s slogan for his campaign for

president of the United States of America. For those critically observing the election, this slogan stands

out and is a bit alarming because in reality, when has America been “Great” for every single person? It is

probably not between the almost 250 years of slavery of Blacks on a land that was stolen through

genocide, or between the almost 100 years of legal segregation? America as a country is a little over 240

years old. Slavery alone existed longer in this land then the country, with about 75% of America’s

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Figure 7. Trump & Hitler (Sims, 2015) Figure 8. Trump Pence (Ventrella, 2016)

existence having legal slavery and segregation. During that small 25% of America’s existence, Trump

criticizes that “we use to be a brilliant country. We’re not a brilliant country anymore, we’re a foolish

country. We’re a dumb country” (CSPAN, 2014). Without pointing out when America’s “Great” era was,

Trump insists he will “Make America Great Again!” “#NeverTrump because you can’t make America

great again when you are precisely what is wrong with it.” (Amin, 2016) Figure 5, is a digital image

recreated from a viral Tweet of someone posting a comparison between a picture taken of a scene with

subtitles from the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, which is a film exploring the horrors of World

War II Nazi extermination camps, and a picture of Donald Trump wearing his “Make America Great

Again” hat. The subtitles reference Hitler's words in English stating, “He’s making the country great

again.” Figure 6, is an art piece showing GOP presidential candidate as Hitler. Images like these have

popped up all over the internet and social media. Even a former president of Mexico said, Trump

“reminds me of Hitler” (Reilly, 2016).

Out of various notable voices claiming they also see similarities between Hitler and Trump, one

voice in particular stands out. Anne Frank’s stepsister Eva Schloss accused Donald Trump of, “acting

like another Hitler... I remember how upset the world was when the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and

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now everyone is building walls again to keep people out. It’s absurd” (Krieg, 2016). Schloss is author to

several books about her experience surviving Auschwitz, which is the place Frank’s mother died. Trump

did not respond immediately, however this time a certain strong group of his supporters did. Neo-Nazis,

White nationalist, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), and other White supremacist groups responded to defend

Donald Trump. Responses said things like, “[he’s our] ultimate savior,” “Hitler loved his people,” and

Hitler made Germany “into a veritable paradise with near zero unemployment (Cameron, 2016).”

An official spokesperson from the KKK commented on their membership growing because the

rise of Trump is a great tool for recruitment. He said, “they like the overall momentum of his rallies and

his campaign. They like that he’s not willing to back down. He says what he believes and he stands on

that” (Holley & Larimer, 2016). Chairman of the American Nazi Party, Rocky Suhayda, declared a month

after the RNC that Donald Trump's “victory would present a great opportunity for white nationalist to

build pro-white coalitions” (Kaczynski, 2016).

The only retweet Hillary Clinton did from her

opponent, Democratic presidential candidate Senator

Bernie Sanders was this tweet: “America’s first black

president cannot and will not be succeeded by a

hatemonger who refuses to condemn the KKK”

(Sanders, 2016). This is on the same day Republican

Presidential Candidate Donald Trump refused to

disavow David Duke former Ku Klux Klan (KKK)

Grand Wizard’s endorsement. Mr. Duke said, “Voting

against Donald Trump at this point, is really trason to

your heritage” (Collins, 2016). After Trump having

had many hasty condemning conclusions about other

groups like the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM),

Figure 9. Who do you want in power? (2016)

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Mexicans, the Pope, women, and Muslims. Donald Trump was asked by Jake Tapper on CNN to disavow

the KKK endorsement, but responded with, “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about

with ‘white supremacy’ or ‘white supremacists.’ I know nothing about white supremacists….You

wouldn’t want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about? I have to look” (Bradner, 2016).

That same week Trump did not disavow the KKK, various drastic white supremacist events

happened around the country. Two days before that specific event, Mississippi’s Governor Phil Bryant

Figure 10. A Tale of Two Hoodies (D’Antuono, 2012)

declared April “Confederate Heritage Month.” This was a direct response to a request from the

Sons of Confederate Veterans. Mississippi being the only former confederate state to still feature the

confederate flag (Almasy, 2016). All over the country at high school basketball games students chant,

“Trump! Trump!” or “Build a wall!” to intimidate racially diverse opponent basketball teams. These are

high schools in California to Iowa and Indiana (Cuevas, 2016).

In Anaheim, California a day before Senator Bernie's tweet, at a KKK rally two Klansmen were

arrested for stabbing a protester with their confederate flag pole. The victim was in critical condition and

blood was all over the pavement. The Klansmen said, “I stabbed him in self defense” (Queally, 2016).

The day before that, 3 young men in Fort Wayne, Indiana were gunned down execution style with

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multiple shots. Their names were Mohamedtaha Omar, 23, Adam Mekki, 20, and Muhammad Tairab, 17.

All were Muslim United States citizens and none were related to each other (Sinclair, 2016).

All of the events mentioned create only a snapshot of what happened in the year 2016 days before

Super Tuesday, where Trump won 7 out of 11 states. As a title of an article from the Huffington Post puts

it, “Trump Won Super Tuesday Because America is Racist” (King, 2016). Dr. Randy Blazak, a hate crime

expert that has published books specifically on the ethnographic field studies of white supremacist groups

says, “Donald Trump is the new face of white supremacy” (Blazak, 2016). He points out that Trump is a

demagogue and even defines it as “a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires

and prejudices rather than using rational argument.” Dr. Blazak does not end there, he calls the GOP

presidential nominee a fascist demagogue. In one book titled The Anatomy of Fascism, it share an

element of what a fascist is “marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or

victimhood” (Paxton, 2005). This comes very clear from his statements of America being “a foolish” and

“dumb country” (CSPAN, 2012). His announcement speech for his candidacy ended with him saying,

“the American dream is dead” (Adams, 2016). While pandering for the Black vote, Trump has said,

“you’re living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs. Fifty-eight percent of your youth

is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?” (Reilly, 2016)

A viral tweet pointed out the confusion some Americans had on the rise of the Trump Era. “The

KKK, Vladmir Putin, and Kim Jong-Un all endorse Trump for president….Are we sure this isn’t an

episode of South Park?” (McDonald, 2016) Figure 10 is an image that also went viral, which compares all

the drastic differences of the top four presidential candidates of the 2016 race. Donald Trump is declared

as a fascist in that image as well. Dr. Blazak points out fascist elements in Trump. His speeches are

anecdotes where he does not have actual facts. He enjoys creating and using conspiracy theories. This can

be seen from when at the time Senator Obama was running for president and Trump lead the “birther”

movement. Constantly questioning the legitimacy of Obama’s citizenship and if he was really American

by asking to see his birth certificate. Again comes the irony and hypocrisy because Trump is not willing

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to release his tax returns, even though every single presidential candidate has done that since 1976

(MSNBC, 2013).

Figure 11. Trump Matters (Bagley, 2015) Figure 12. All Lives Matter (Bors, 2016)

The scary elements of a fascist demagogue are what makes the rise of power for fascist hopefully

something learned from history, rather than repeated. After WWI, Europe especially Germany and the

United States were in economic hardships. The US went into the Great Depression and Germany had their

own form of Great Depression. Hitler used his country's hard times as a means to gain power. By being a

fearmonger, using a strong aggressive nationalism, and using a “us versus them” framework through

scapegoating Jews and using racism; Hitler gain much momentum and power, while many did not take

him serious on with his outrageous proposals like deporting whole groups of people, and starting to round

up people of one religion. History reads clearly how his rise of power based on those elements of fear

mongering, using a strong aggressive nationalism, and using a racist scapegoating “us versus them”

framework, allowed some of the most tragic events in history to occur and lead to the second World War.

The US responded different with electing and having President Franklin D. Roosevelt lead the country

with socially democratic policies, which help move the US to be economically stable. It is important to

remember that these times were during segregation however, and as one Georgia lawmaker put it in the

year 2016; Defending the KKK as not a racist domestic terrorist organization, but nothing more than “a

vigilante thing to keep law and order” (Bult, 2016).

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 Fig. 13, Neo Confederates (Ellis & Hanna, 2015)

During Donald Trump’s acceptance speech as the official GOP presidential nominee at the RNC,

he said “I am your voice. I alone can fix it. I will restore law and order” (Appelbaum, 2016). This time

making it more clear that the GOP has selected an individual that does not ask Republicans or Americans

to measure him against their own values, does not appeal to ask for the help from prayer or God, but

solely asks to put all their trust in him. This is the same man who said during one of his rallies, “I could

stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” (Diamond, 2016)

Same person who encourages violence towards protesters at his rallies by saying, “I’d like to punch him

in the face,” and another time, “knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the

hell - I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees” (Stein, 2016).

Figure 11 depicts how many protesters experience Trump rallies. The gross hypocrisy of many

Black Lives Matter protesters at Trump rallies being beat up while the crowd shouts out “All Lives

Matter” (Stein, 2016). Governor Nikki Haley spoke out against Trump by saying, “I know what that

rhetoric can do. I saw it happen.” (Adcox, 2016) She was referring to how a year prior, divisive speech

motivated Dylann Roof to shoot nine Black people at a church. Roof was in multiple photos with

Confederate flags prior to the shooting. This shows how it is irrational to ask Blacks to stop bringing up

slavery and “get over it”, when White supremacists like neo-Confederates are not over the US Civil War.

The hypocrisy of neo-confederates is also exposed when they tell those that do not approve of Trump

winning the electoral vote and losing the popular vote, when they tell anti-Trump protesters to “get over

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it”. Along with Trumps racist rhetoric, he does not know when to stop promoting violence as the answer

to conflict. A viral tweet says, “Donald Trump asking about nuclear weapons is the biggest red flag since

Voldemort asked about Horcruxes as a teenager at Hogwarts.” (Woodham, 2016) The tweet is about

Trump asking one of his advisers why the US has nuclear weapons if they are not going to use them.

Soon after, 50 GOP officials warned about how Trump puts national security “at risk” (Sanger, 2016).

On top of suggesting to use nuclear weapons, Donald Trump suggested disturbing violence

towards his opponent, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton during a rally. He lied about how

Mrs. Clinton wants to abolish the right to bear arms. He falsely warned through fear mongering that “if

she gets to pick her judges” to the supreme court, there is “nothing you can do, folks. Although the

Second Amendment people - maybe there is, I don’t know.” (Corasaniti, 2016) For many that have stayed

quiet before, this comment went too far for them, including for Patti Davis the daughter of former

President of the United States Ronald Reagan. Patti Davis, blasted Trump for inciting violence.

“To Donald Trump: I am the daughter of a man who was shot by someone who got his inspiration
from a movie, someone who believed if he killed the President the actress from that movie would
notice him. Your glib and horrifying comment about ‘Second Amendment people’ was heard
around the world. It was heard by sane and decent people who shudder at your fondness for
verbal violence. It was heard by your supporters, many of whom gleefully and angrily yell, ‘Lock
her up!’ at your rallies. It was heard by the person sitting alone in a room, locked in his own dark
fantasies, who sees unbridled violence as a way to make his mark in the world, and is just looking
for ideas. Yes, Mr. Trump, words matter. But then you know that, which makes this all even more
horrifying.” (LoBianco, 2016)

Fig. 14. He’s already building it (McDowell, 2016) Fig. 15. Idiocracy (Bagley, 2016)

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 “I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once

hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” (Baldwin, 1993) With the rise of power and influence

of Trump, there also was a rise of hate crimes, violence, hate speech, and white supremacists. The number

of hate groups rose 14 percent, with just the number of KKK chapters more than doubling in 2015 alone

(Potok, 2016). Flyers have been distributed around the country recruiting for the KKK (Hienz, 2016).

Trump’s lies and actions are fueling violence, which in turn could become tragic violence post November

once the result of the presidential election are confirmed (Badash, 2016). That is why it is so important to

call out Donald Trump what he really is. He is not a Republican and he is un-American because of the

plain disrespect and disregard to the constitution. That ignorance to the constitution sustained by a lack of

empathy has exposed how Trump is a demagogue fascist. Where various groups of minoritized

communities literally fear their lives and cannot just “#MoveToCanada”.

Worldwide Anti-Globalization

The US 2016 presidential election is between those that embrace globalization with those that

fear it. This contrast is seen by the clear policy proposals of Donald Trump wanting to ban Muslims from

entering the country, while also creating a database to have surveillance over them. The irony of Trump

supporters chanting All Lives Matter, while beating Black Lives Matter protesters and also making sure

no refugees are allowed in the country. The proposals to do a mass deportation of Mexicans, creating a

huge wall that is forcefully going to be paid by Mexico, along with having an extreme vetting system of

immigrants through ideology tests are all great example of anti-globalization. Trumps is a fear monger

who uses fear to fuel his momentum. This anti-globalization energy is also sadly happening in other

countries around the world.

On June 23, 2016, The United Kingdom (UK) held a referendum that had 71.8% of all eligible

voters turnout to vote on either staying or leaving the European Union. Out of the over 30 million people

who voted, 52% voted to leave and 48% voted to stay (Hunts, 2016). The next day, UK Prime Minister

resigned, and Scotland considered holding a referendum of their own to leave the UK. Social scientist

Alexander Betts explores the phenomenon of what happened in the UK known as the Brexit.

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 “There's very little social science evidence that compares attitudes on globalization. But from the
surveys that do exist, what we can see is there's huge variation across different countries and time
periods in those countries for attitudes and tolerance of questions like migration and mobility on
the one hand and free trade on the other. But one hypothesis that I think emerges from a cursory
look at that data is the idea that polarized societies are far less tolerant of globalization. It's the
societies like Sweden in the past, like Canada today, where there is a centrist politics, where right
and left work together, that we encourage supportive attitudes towards globalization. And what
we see around the world today is a tragic polarization, a failure to have dialogue between the
extremes in politics, and a gap in terms of that liberal center ground that can encourage
communication and a shared understanding. We might not achieve that today, but at the very least
we have to call upon our politicians and our media to drop a language of fear and be far more
tolerant of one another” (Betts, 2016).

Figure 16. Brexit, Making Great Britain Great Again (Branco, 2016)

Betts references the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan who gave a

speech at Yale University on the topic of inclusive globalization. Kofi said, “the glass house of

globalization has to be open to all if it is to remain secure. Bigotry and ignorance are the ugly face of

exclusionary and antagonistic globalization.” (Betts, 2016) The growing “governing cancer of our time”

as a New York Times columnist put it, is the activation of ignorant and bigoted authoritarians worldwide

(Brooks, 2016). Social scientist Betts points this out about the Brexit that “we see it with the rise in

popularity of Donald Trump in the United States, with the growing nationalism of Viktor Orban in

Hungary, with the increase in popularity of Marine Le Pen in France. The specter of Brexit is in all of our

societies.” (Betts, 2016)

Alexander Betts suggested that we moved to a post-factual society, “where evidence and truth no

longer matter and lies have equal status to the clarity of evidence.” (Betts, 2016) This feels very true

19
hearing reasons people voted in deciding to leave the EU, because they correlated that action to having

power to stop globalization. In 2014, research was published to show that the narrative around

immigration by the media and politics, directly was proportionate to the public concern on immigration,

even if the numbers of immigrants was not increasing (Betts, 2016). There is both tremendous public

misinformation and misunderstanding about the actual nature of immigration.

Figure 17. Literally Sarcastic (Krieg, 2016)

In the US, Donald Trump has done this with his original statement about “when Mexico sends its

people, they’re not sending their best.” (Adams, 2016) Trump’s campaign uses an ad that shows footage

of dozens of people climbing over a border fence. The ad makes it seem as if the footage is about the US-

Mexican border as the narrator says about Trump, “He’ll stop illegal immigration by building a wall on

our southern border that Mexico will pay for.” (Kaplan, 2016) The actual footage is not from the Mexico

border, but from literal thousands of miles away in Morocco.

It was aired in 2014, on Italian television. Another claim Trump has is that, “there were people

that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab population. They were

cheering as the World Trade Center came down [on 9/11].” (Kaplan, 2016) One of the most misinforming

claims Donald Trump has made is calling President Obama the literal founder of ISIS and not backing

down on his claim until GOP leaders pushed him to (Krieg, 2016). His response was the sarcasm card.

The irony of all of these huge lies is that many of his supporters say they follow Trump because he speaks

his mind and says it how it is. However, the danger is that since we are in a post-factual society, those lies

20
are not seen as sarcasm and followers of huge lies like those are having scary and sometimes violent

impact.

There were at least 12 major events that happened hours after Donald Trump won the presidential

election and became the president elect. A top Israeli government minister declared that the idea of

Palestinian state was now “over.” American Muslim women wearing a hijab around the country became

instant targets of hate crimes. Protests, fires, and riots bursted in major cities across the country. Global

financial markets went haywire. Sarah Palin said that Britain and America will be “hooking up” in light of

Brexit and Trump. Former KKK leader David Duke declared that night “one of the most exciting nights

of [his] life.” Shares in renewable energy companies drastically tanked, while shares for arms companies

skyrocketed to a record high. Russia’s legislature applauded the victory of Trump and called Hillary a

“grandma.” Mexico’s foreign minister made it clear they wouldn’t be paying for the wall. Canada’s

immigration website crashed because of the high demand of American visitors to the site. Jihadi leaders

welcomed Trump by saying, “Trump’s victory is a hard slap to those promoting the efficiency of

democratic systems. Starting today, we won’t need media releases clarifying the West’s machinations. All

we need to do is retweet what Trump says. Trumps winning might be bad for us in the short run.

However, it is better for Muslims in the long run as he’ll ruin the US.” (Stone, 2016) Graffiti with

statements like “Black lives don’t matter and neither does your votes,” “fuck your safe space,” “build

wall,” and “Trump!” showed up on school campuses and neighborhoods (Amatulli, 2016).

Even though the GOP has tried to distance themselves from Trump because he is not the

traditional republican, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid warned that “The only thing Republicans have

done these years was to prove that they are the party of Trump. They say they’re not the party of Trump,

but they are. They would have us believe that Trump just fell out of the sky and somehow mysteriously

became the nominee of the party. Everything, anything that President Obama wanted - they filibustered

things they agreed with just to slow things down. Trump is no anomaly.” (Lee, 2016) Once Trump won

the election various people including Hillary Clinton, and President Obama asked for unity and giving

Trump a chance. Then one of Trump’s first actions as President Elect is appoint White Nationalist Steve

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 Fig. 18, And it’s Gone (2016)

Bannon as Strategist. Even Glenn Beck warned that Bannon “is a terrifying man” with “clear ties to

White Nationalists.” (Derysh, 2016)

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said something plainly during his victory speech in

Nevada after one of the super tuesdays, revealing how he is completely aware his demagogy fascist

strategy works in the current post-factual society. “We won the evangelicals. We won with young. We

won with old. We won with highly educated. We won with poorly educated. I love the poorly educated.”

(Hafner, 2016) The “poorly educated” are key to analyzing the vital role of the US education system in

the rise of the Trump Era. It is the “poorly educated” that have allowed Trump, Brexit, and the worldwide

anti-globalization energy to expose how important a democratic, anti-hegemonic, and anti-oppressive

education through various critical pedagogies are required to truly reconcile democracy and inclusive

globalization.

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Reframing Authoritarianism

Figure 19. I Love The Poorly Educated (Jones, 2016)

American Authoritarianism

“Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.”

-James Baldwin

Dissertation research by Matthew MacWilliams found out that the most reliable predictor of

being a Trump supporter was how high an individual ranks in the authoritarian scale (MacWilliams,

2016). There are some people that are “latent authoritarians” that must be “triggered” through the

perception of social threats, in order to be activated and start acting like authoritarians (Taub, 2016).

Supposedly, MacWilliams says his research is not talking about the term authoritarianism as a

dictatorship, but more about a worldview. The prior section about the rise of the Trump Era has shown

otherwise by reviewing the manner Trump is a demogogy fascist. In the so called “worldview”

authoritarianism, people value conformity and order, protect social norms, and are wary of outsiders.

When they feel threatened, they act out to seek an aggressive leader and their policies (MacWilliams,

2016). A staggering 49% of likely Republican primary voters ranked in the top quarter of the

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authoritarian scale, which was more than twice as Democratic voters (MacWilliams, 2016). There were

39% of independents that were identified as authoritarians also. MacWilliams concluded,

“So, those who say a Trump presidency ‘can’t happen here’ should check their conventional
wisdom at the door. The candidate has confounded conventional expectations this primary season
because those expectations are based on an oversimplified caricature of the electorate in general
and his supporters in particular. Conditions are ripe for an authoritarian leader to emerge. Trump
is seizing the opportunity. And the institutions—from the Republican Party to the press—that are
supposed to guard against what James Madison called ‘the infection of violent passions’ among
the people have either been cowed by Trump’s bluster or are asleep on the job.
It is time for those who would appeal to our better angels to take his insurgency seriously and
stop dismissing his supporters as a small band of the dispossessed. Trump support is firmly
rooted in American authoritarianism and, once awakened, it is a force to be reckoned with. That
means it’s also time for political pollsters to take authoritarianism seriously and begin measuring
it in their polls.” (MacWilliams, 2016)

Figure 20. Authoritarian Demagogue (Branch, 2016)

Stanley Feldman, a political scientist from the early 1990s believed authoritarianism was an

important factor to American politics in ways that were not connect to fascism. Rather than it being a

political preference, authoritarianism was a personality profile and their tendencies could be revealed by

asking them about parenting goals. MacWilliams used the same four questions Feldman created designed

to reveal how highly the respondent values hierarchy, order, and conformity over other values. The

following are the four questions.

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 1. “Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: independence or

respect for elders?”

2. “Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: obedience or self-

reliance?”

3. “Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: to be considerate or to

be well-behaved?”

4. “Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: curiosity or good

manners?”

Figure 21. Deserve Neither Liberty Nor Security (Margulies, 2005)

Feldman reviewed the research MacWilliams did about Trump supporters and wrote that they

“are most willing to want to use force, to crack down on immigration, and limit civil liberties.” (Taub,

2016) The “action side” of these activated “poorly educated” authoritarians have “the willingness to use

government power to eliminate the threats - that is most clear among Trump supporters.” (Taub, 2016)

This is where traditional Republicans theoretically do not want to step over, because they believe in

limited government. MacWilliams found that authoritarians generally and Trump voters specifically

support five policies (2016):

● “Using military forces over diplomacy against countries that threaten the United States.”

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 ● “Changing the Constitution to bar citizenship for children of illegal immigrants.”

● “Imposing extra airport checks on passengers who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent in

order to curb terrorism.”

● “Requiring all citizens to carry a national ID card at all times to show to a police officer on

request, to curb terrorism.”

● “Allowing the federal government to scan all phone calls to any number linked to terrorism.”

Reframing from Psychological to Sociocultural

Mark Tappan has written about reframing internalized oppression and internalized domination

from the psychological to the sociocultural. Rather than being internal qualities or characteristics, they

can be seen as sociocultural phenomena. This is better understood as mediated actions that entails two

central elements of “(1) an agent, the person who is doing the acting, and (2) cultural tools or mediational

means, the tools, means, or instruments, appropriated from the culture and sued by the agent to

accomplish a given action.” (Tappan, 2006) This reinterpretation allows it to hold both the individual and

structural/systemic levels together in order to rearticulate the “internalization” into both “appropriated

oppression” and “appropriated domination.” (Tappan, 2006)

Traditionally, the internally oppressed “adopt the [dominant] group’s ideology and accept their

subordinate status as deserved, natural, and inevitable.” (Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 1997) While those with

internalized domination are “members of the [dominant] group accept[ing] their group’s socially superior

status as normal and deserved.” (Adams, Bell, & Griffin, 1997) However, with the rearticulation from

“internalized” to “appropriated,” this allows,

“Us away from an image of the oppressed as victims and the privileged as villains, operating out
of set and static mindsets that cannot be changed. A conception of appropriated oppression and
appropriated privilege, in contrast, gives to a measure of hope and sense that these dynamics, both
at the individual level and at the systemic level, can be changed, made different. A move towards
a conception of both oppression and privilege as mediated action also entails the understanding
that both oppression and privilege typically emerge from the same social-cultural-historical-
institutional-structural-systematic context. As such, it enables us to see both the oppressed and the
privileged as full and equal participants in a common history and an ongoing dialogue that,
although it may not be easy (and may in fact at times seem impossible), is our only hope for
personal and social transformation.” (Tappan, 2006)

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 The sociocultural perspective lens gives the context of mediated action to what otherwise would

be seen as simply psychological, which is limiting and gives overemphasis on the personal and individual

dimensions. This is why also reframing authoritarianism as a psychological profile of individual voters, to

a context of mediated actions of socialization, allows critical focus on the vital role of the US education

system on the rise of the Trump Era. American authoritarians flocking to the GOP presidential nominee,

Donald Trump, then are seen as products of a clear social, cultural, historical, institutional, structural, and

systematic context. These authoritarians are the prime example of what appropriated oppression and

appropriated domination/privilege looks like. From the White-supremacist, male-supremacist, nativist,

classist, heterosexist, faithist, and ableist that has xenophobia, and deficit thinking towards those they

have accepted as the minoritzed or the “other”. Or the minortized/oppressed that have “internalized” the

socialization mediated sometimes more violently to them then compared to their privileged counterparts.

Those with appropriated oppression realize that even though they “want at any cost to resemble the

oppressors,” as Paulo Freire says, they will be put in their place. Just like Jake Anantha, the self identified

half-Indian young man escorted out of a Trump rally, even though he identified as a Trump supporter.

Jake explained why he thought he was kicked out while still wearing his pro-Trump shirt with another

pro-Trump shirt underneath, “I do think it’s because I’m brown.” (Killough, 2016)

The so called “latent authoritarians” that need to be “triggered” through perceived social threats,

have been conditioned and already activated. This has happened throughout US history however, now

they are active authoritarians with the current post-factual society and the anti-globalization guided by

fearmongers and demogogy fascists. They have appropriated domination/privilege beyond the recent old

perimeters of colorblindness, or as Trump supporters say, “political correctness” they lowth so much.

Before the rise of the Trump Era, the Tea Party Movement lead the way by amplifying racism through

perpetuating a race-neutral coded colorblind ideology stemmed from the mainstream notions about race

(Burke, 2015). The Tea Party and the vast majority of future Trump supporters, had various events that

started to “trigger” these latent authoritarians to become activated American authoritarians. This includes

the fearmongering narratives creating a rhetoric that the majoritized are loosing power through various

27
events. For appropriated dominated and privileged, equity and equality for the “other” looks and feels like

discrimination and oppression.

Events include the democratically elected first Black president of the United State of America,

the passing of any law by President Obama including Obamacare and the veto by him when the GOP

controlled congress tried to repeal it. The legalization of same sex marriage nationwide. Plan parenthood

being publically funded and the conservative media using fear and misinformation leading Robert Lewis,

self proclaimed “warrior for the babies” to shoot and kill three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in

Colorado Springs. Before the White Male was identified, distanced from any relation to the influence to

the mediated actions of the conservative media, and the tragic event is attributed to mental illness; The

comment section for the live reporting on Fox News on the shooting had some of the following

comments: “Well I guess as active shooters go, you can’t choose a better place to have your little

rampage,” “Know the area: probably an attempted holdup by one of the six blacks in Colorado Springs,”

“I know this isn’t PC...but n***gers are just plain bad news,” “it’s probably a black guy that couldn’t get

a 10 piece chicken nugget from McDonalds going on a rampage…,” “Obama set this up!!!! He is sick!!!”

“Good. No one else deserves to die as much as they do,” “78% of abortions are blacks….Open more

planned parenthood clinics,” “This shooter is a HERO! All life is precious, and must be protected, cradle

to grave!” (NC, 2015).

Another huge event that triggered authoritarians as a social threat is President Obama’s executive

orders of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of

Americans), which directly protects certain undocumented youth and parents from being deported. The

misformation in the post-factual society on top of the backdrop of the soon to come “majority-minority”

of citizens and voters, drives fear for nativist and those with xenophobia. That is why proposals like

building a “huge” wall that Mexico will pay for and having mass deportation as the solutions to derail that

future reality seems logical for activated authoritarians.

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 Figure 22. Planned Parenthood (Ohman, 2015)

The rise of the Trump Era began with “conditions [that] are ripe for an authoritarian leader to

emerge [and] Trump is seizing the opportunity,” as authoritarian researcher Matthew MacWilliams has

stated. It was an easy and quick shift from the rise of the Tea Party to the rise of the Trump Era. Both

were fueled by fear and a post-factual approach. The difference was the Tea Party used a theology of

“racial sanitized rhetoric” as the author of the New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander writes, or in other

words a colorblind theology. The rise of the Trump has completely disrupted colorblindness and “political

correctness” by smothering themselves with it’s true colors of bigotry and violence. The similarities of

both rises is the social-political-economic context of neoliberalism. Social scientist, Alexander Betts, who

spoke about the post-factual society and anti-globalization referred to the concept of inclusive

globalization disappearing almost without a trace “amid austerity and the financial crisis of 2008,” while

“globalization [being] taken to support a neoliberal agenda.” (Betts, 2016) Neoliberalism has hijacked not

only globalization, but various industries and systems including the education system. Betts recommends

that the first transformation needed to address the post-factual society and anti-globalization, which

includes the demogogy fascists leaders and their “poorly educated” activated authoritarian followers

relates to the idea of civic education. However, going beyond that, the number one priority is the

29
education system itself. That is why this thesis will examine the vital role the US education system has on

the rise of the Trump Era.

Figure 23. Professor Trump’s Lesson in Distraction (Horsey, 2016)

Role of US Education System

About a month before Donald Trump became the official Republican presidential nominee at the

RNC, Trump got into hot water for his attacks on federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel. Judge Curiel was

presiding over the fraud lawsuits against Trump University, which is a “university” that provides no

degree, no traditional accreditation, and has no licensed instructors. Trump called the US district judge

who is Indiana-born, “a Mexican,” and that he has an “inherent conflict of interest.” (Schleifer, 2016)

Even the highest-ranking Republican, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan disavowed Trump’s comments,

but still reaffirmed that he will keep his endorsement for Trump. Speaker Ryan blasted Trump with,

“claiming that someone cannot do their job because of their race is sort of the textbook definition of a

racist comment.” (Martin, 2016)

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 Two important things come out of this specific example. First, Trump is seen again being overtly

racist and choosing to disrupt the colorblindness hegemony, because this increases the support of his

“poorly educated” activated authoritarians. Second, “half-truth[s] from a self-serving half-man who has

somehow convinced half the country that sacrifice is the same thing as success,” as comedian John Oliver

said about businessman Trump when the presidential candidate could not name any sacrifices in his life

(Oliver, 2016); Narcissist Donald Trump with his vast privilege as a white cis-male, able-bodied,

heterosexual, “Christian” born into wealth has taken full advantage of those privileges to capitalize on

everything and anything you could think of. Flourishing in the neoliberal society, Trump has exploited

various people with his casinos, China factory made clothes, mortgages, steaks, travel site, comms

company, vodka, and in the example above Trump University (Stuart, 2016). Thanks to capitalism and

neoliberalism, American Donald Trump can capitalize and exploit people in the name of education and

the American Dream.

Figure 24. Neoliberalism (Arcadi, 2012)

Neoliberal Hegemony Part 1: Free Market Principles

Mark Abendroth and Brad Porfilio are both editors of a two volume book in critical constructions

in understanding neoliberal rule in both K-12 and higher education. The two books brought together

31
several contributors that highlight the impact of educational policy formation, learning and teaching, and

the relationship between the institutions, education institution, and communities. It also highlights

resistence from youth, educators, scholars and other forms of resistance.

“The chapters of this book address various ways that neoliberalism has had devastating impacts
on the quality of life for the vast majority of people around the world. Politically, neoliberalism is
an anti-democratic force that gives the corporate elite of global capitalism power of nations states.
Economically, it is not satisfied until all goods and services become for-profit industries free from
government regulations. Socially and culturally, it seeks a neo-colonized, homogenized world in
which all people of the planet become either unorganized workers (mainly women and people of
color) or targeted consumers (people with race and class privileges). Ecologically, neoliberalism
is an unsustainable disaster that upholds the power of big oil and seeks production in countries
without environmental regulations. The impacts threaten not only quality of life but life itself. As
ecological disasters worsen with climate change, there is an urgent need to make the connections
between short-sighted neoliberalism and its disregard for life on earth. Future generations depend
on all of us to act in solidarity against neoliberalism and for a humanizing, democratic, and
sustainable alternative. This book offers diverse voices on a united front to resist the neoliberal
status quo and to create a new global community that places the needs of people above the drive
for profit.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. xii)
The devastating and oppressive impacts of neoliberalism is literally in every aspect of society.

Yet, what is neoliberalism and where did it come from? “Neoliberalism is the rise of global market

fundamentalism” (Klein, 2007; Giroux, 2008). Neoliberalism,

“advances, the vision of unfettered economic markets operating to determine the structure and
function of the broader economy, society, and culture. Hence, it is the market and not the state
that is relied upon to provide the most efficient and just means for the distribution of resources
and opportunity throughout the social order. The role of government is redirected and that of big
business is correspondingly increased as the very concept of ‘public goods’ (e.g., education and
welfare support) is challenged---their delineation and provision increasingly turned over to the
instrumentalities of private enterprise. As a result, concerns over limiting the social costs of their
provision and the social justice issues associated with the distribution of resources recede before
what is presumed to be the unstoppable force behind the ‘invisible hand’ of the all-powerful
capitalist marketplace (Cassel & Nelson, 2013). The neoliberal vision holds competition up as the
central governing force in human advancement as individuals are transformed into what Foucault
(1979) describes as equally competent, equally privileged ‘entrepreneurs of themselves’. The
neoliberal value system, then, revolves around an ever-expanding capitalist infrastructure
dedicated to producing an ever-expanding basket of goods that individual actors compete
relentlessly with each other to obtain in order to achieve success within a hyper-consumerist
socioeconomic model.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 336)

Historically since the eighteenth century, during the depth of empires, colonialism, slavery,

genocides, and economic philosophies; individualistic centrality of human agency in and around affairs of

32
the world guided the intellectual appeal which neoliberalism is rooted in. It is “covered with a dense

patina of capitalist market motives forces,” that is a powerful form of intellectual hegemony.

“As the intellectual and physical infrastructure of neoliberalism arose, another proposition, which
we refer to here as neoconservatism, was also on the rise. Neoconservatism held forth the vision
of an extremely powerful state that exercises determinative control over human affairs through
the operation of a ubiquitous bureaucratic apparatus. This point of view holds that the state
commands actions with regard to aspects of the function of the human body, personal and group
behaviors, values, sociocultural standards, economic activity, and the nature and value of
knowledge, and what it passed on to successive generations in the form of core cultural values.
The increasingly centralized monarchies of early modern Europe foreshadowed the
neoconservative worldview, and heavily bureaucratized Prussian state of the late eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries became a model for its mature form --- including the role of education as an
instrument of government control. State-sponsored and managed education became a central tool
in the production of properly acculturated, passive, and obedient subjects (Appl, 1993; Gatto,
1994). Over the course of the last half-century, these two somewhat countervailing visions have
come together in what some have termed the conservative modernization movement (Apple,
1993). This combines the strong state mentality of neoconservatism with the all-powerful
marketplace mentality of neoliberalism. The product is an iteration of the neoliberal vision that
allows persons the economic freedom to engage in state-supported competition for resources
while using government power to restrain and channel their actions relative to social issues and
purposes. The government, then, only limits the range and scope of its direct involvement in the
affairs of the citizenry to the extent that it transfers activities once associated with social welfare
interventionism to entities driven by marketplace forces.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 338-
339)

Figure 25. Education is Modeled on the Interest of Industrialization (2000)

33
 Having a “state-sponsored and managed education [become] a central tool in the production of

properly acculturated, passive, and obedient subjects,” became a foundational element in the

production of an authoritarian education system. Sugata Mitra, an education researcher explains

perfectly the role education has in the foundation of the “conservative modernization movement” of

neoliberalism. “The Victorians were great engineers. They engineered a [schooling] system that was so

robust that it’s still with us today, continuously producing identical people for a machine that no longer

exists.” (Mitra, 2012) The education system is a product of the British Empire needing a system to run

the planet without computers, or other modern technology, but with only hand written data and

traveling by ships. Sugata Mitra frames this phenomena of how they actually did it.

“What they did was amazing! They created a global computer made up of people. It’s still with
us today. It’s called ‘the bureaucratic administrative machine.’ In order to have that machine
running you need lots and lots of people. They made another machine to produce those people.
The school. The schools would produce the people who would then become parts of ‘the
bureaucratic administrative machine’. They must be identical to each other. They must know
three things: They must have good handwriting because the data is handwritten. They must be
able to read and must be able to do multiplication, division, addition and substation in their
head. They must be so identical that you can pick one up from New Zealand and ship them to
Canada and he would be instantly functional.
Continually producing identical people for a machine that no longer exists. The empire is gone.
So what are we doing with that design that produces identical people. And what are we going
to do next if we ever are going to do anything else with it. So, that’s a pretty strong comment
there, I said ‘schools as we know them now their obsolete.’ I’m not saying their broken. It’s
quite fashionable to say that the education system’s broken—it’s not broken, it’s wonderfully
constructed. It’s just that we don’t need it anymore. It’s outdated.” (Mitra, 2012)

Sir Ken Robinson has added how the education system is rooted in hegemony of authoritarianism

by putting the invention of the system into political-historical-social context in stating, “education is

modeled on the interests of industrialization and in the image of it.” (Robinson, 2010) On top of that, in a

now a post-industrial era of entangled neoliberalism of the public education in the 21st century, free-

market principles compound the problem.

“The neoliberal model of education involves a range of free-market principles---rationalization

and cost cutting, declining investments, a limited selection of curriculum options, privatization,
the specter of school choice... a major focus of neoliberal education is the unwavering devotion to
standardized testing, standards, and (supposed) accountability, all of which isolate and diminish
the place of democracy and social justice in education.” (Sleeter, 2007)

34
 Fig. 26 Trickle Down Economics (Hall, 2016) Fig. 27, Resources and Standards (Parker, 2002)

It becomes clear that from the initial creation of the education system, to then the public

education system, is the “production of properly acculturated, passive, and obedient subjects” in order to

manage the empires and industrialization. This system being the perfect robust machine in producing

authoritarians socialized to value order, obedience, authority, and being well-behaved, over curiosity,

being empathic, self-reliant, and independent. This “bureaucratic administrative machine” was first only

accessible to the most privileged. Only White male, able bodied, Christian, and wealthy individuals were

allowed to become cogs in the empire managing machine. They became the first group in the education

system to be socialized for generations to see themselves as the only ones capable to managing not only

this system, but all other systems. The exact process of appropriated dominance. It is through the

education system how one becomes “qualified” and validated to operate and lead other systems, weather

that be government, justice system, health care, military, media, and so on. The depressing reality is that

from the foundation of the education system, dehumanization has occurred. Even though it was only the

most privileged in the start that became cogs, they were dehumanized by becoming cogs and not

empathic, critical consciousness, and democratically driven individuals aware of the possibilities for

human potential rather than assimilating to authority in order to oppressing others.

35
 Fig. 29, Reverse Racism (Howze, 2016)

Neoliberal Hegemony Part 2: White Supremacy & Nationalism

Capitalism and neoliberalism cannot function without oppressing and dehumanizing not only the

minoritized “other”, but also the oppressor themselves. This is seen from the manner the original cogs in

the education system came from the oppressors community. The generational socialization of the

oppressors internalizing their supposed entailed position in the systems is stemmed in appropriated

domination of white supremacy and nationalism. Both white supremacy and nationalism work out of a

framework that requires making it clear who is the “other”. The “other” can be exploited for the benefit of

those that are not included as the “other”. During the political-social-historical context of the creation of

the education system, the empires were flourishing because of colonial oppression and exploitation

through slavery labor force, sealing land, and genocide. The “bureaucratic administrative machine”

continued to manage all of the legal, accepted, and popular systematic oppression for hundreds of years.

Fig. 28, Imperialism (Killreplica, 2016)

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 Fig. 30, A Concise History of Black-White Relations in the U.S.A. (Deutsch, 2015)

In the thirteen colonies, after colonizing the land of the Native Americans and using slavery to

become more economically stable, the colonies resisted and had a revolution because they did not like

being oppressed. They attempted to build a democracy in order for them to become the largest and most

powerful empire. The birth of the “free nation” had only White men give input on what every man being

“created equal” meant, while paving the way for future input from the “others” that will continue to come

and are already present in the young nation. Whiteness studies scholar Toni Morrison pointed out,

“‘Nothing highlighted freedom--if it did not in fact create it--like slavery’. Freedom, for Morrison
is at the heart of what White racial identity meant for European immigrants but she is diligent to
continually call out the ways in which such an idea of freedom must be premised on an example
of un-freedom in order for freedom itself to carry any meaning. Whiteness needs Blackness, and a
less-free or un-free Blackness at that in order to understand it as free, as White. For Morrison the
White American preoccupation with freedom is a way of understanding the desire for slavery and
the ‘life of regularized violence’ against people of color that remains in place in our present era.
In other words, for Morrison, White people need examples of what is not White in order for them
to understand themselves as White---and in the White imaginary as detailed by Morrison through
her analysis of (White) American Literature, this need for violence is a need for reassurance in

37
 the White mind that the White self is what it claims to be: free, innocent, and good. Even long
after the abolition of slavery, there is still a need for White people to carve out the image of an
‘other’ against whom they can construct their own belonging and identity.
We can see a similar social process today unfolding in the criminal justice system in the United
States. Michelle Alexander (2010) makes it clear there is a vast overrepresentation of people of
color, especially African Americans, who are incarcerated in the United States. To this point
Alexander highlights the finding that there are currently more Black people in prison than were
enslaved just before the Civil War. We could thus claim, following Morrison’s logic, there is
something about the White desire to understand itself as ‘free’ that necessitates the maintenance
of an un-free, un-White other from whom to arrive at self-definition through negation (i.e., That
is not me, therefore I am the opposite of the ‘other,’ and so on). In other words, we still have an
‘un-free’ racialized caste in our present era, the project of White racial identity formation is still
premised on understanding itself as free, and thus of marking others as un-free.” (Abendroth &
Porfilio, 2015, p. 304-305)

“Make America Great” is the slogan for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. From his

announcement speech about Mexicans, each day, week, and month he has articulated on his list every

form of the “other” not included in that romanized past “Great America.” The day after the last

presidential debate an article was published discussed the viral hashtags of #TheAfricanAmericans,

#TheHispanics, #TheAsians, and so on. Linguist Lynne Murphy explained, “‘The’ makes the group seem

like it’s a large, uniform mass, rather than a diverse group of individuals. This is the key to ‘othering’:

treating people from another group as less human than one’s own group. The Nazis did it when they

talked about die Juden (‘the Jews’). Homophobes do it when they talk about ‘the gays.’” (Desmond-

Harris, 2016) Nationalism is then the next concept that connects the understanding of the “other”. There

are in fact various categorical identities against nationalism that can create their “other”. Weather it be

immigrants, Muslims, refugees, Blacks, LGBT folks, and women who are used, it maintains the

“otherness” of the national outsider while holding a sense of homogeneity reflective in this election of the

“free”. Thus, this understanding of nationalism and the formation of nationalism as a process that has

national identities constructed in opposition to the others can be seen expressing itself with the anti-

globalization energy and scapegoating leading Trump’s fascist rise.

38
 Fig. 31, America’s Not Great (Davies, 2016) Fig. 32, That’s Offensive (Sheneman, 2016)

The irony and double standard exposed during the 2016 presidential election when talking about

nationalism is clear. Professional football player Colin Kaepernick used the strategy of peaceful protest of

kneeling during the national anthem to response to the various shootings of innocent Black men by police.

Black Lives Matters protesters strategizes have constantly been criticized by conservative and supposedly

liberal media outlets. Many of them calling for peaceful protest. Even though Kaepernick did do peaceful

protest to call out America for not being great for all people by their manner of treating Black people, he

was instantly called unpatriotic, un-American, and offensive. Conservatives tokenized those serving in the

military and who are veterans to attack Kaepernick in being disrespectful for their service to the country.

There were both conservative organizations and law enforcement saying, “anyone not being patriotic and

standing for the national anthem should get thrown in jail.” (Brown, 2016) The viral

#VeteransForKaepernick started to trend as veterans pointed out they defend the constitution which grants

Kaepernick the right of freedom of speech (Szoldra, 2016).

39
 Fig. 33, Beef Race (Wilkinson, 2014)

During the 1960’s Civil Rights movement 87% of Black Churches did not support Dr. King (Day,

2013). The general public also was not in full support to end legal segregation and allowing all people of

color to become full citizens by granting them the right to vote. Weather Dr. King’s approach was

peaceful protest or strategizes like shutting down a highway as the Black Lives Matters also did, it was

until much later when both his community and the nation came together to see him as a defender of our

nation’s soul. This viral tweet says it well, “50 years from now, Media & #AllLivesMatter folks will tell

their grandchildren they totally supported #BLM like folks do 2day w/ #MLK” (Gomez, 2016). Dr. King

was a “criminal” because he went to jail various of times. These are some of his own words he wrote

while being in the Birmingham Jail that echo to the realities that African Americans still feel today.

“You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping ‘order’ and ‘preventing violence.’ I
doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their
teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you
were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch
them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old
Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us
food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham
police department.
It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense
they have conducted themselves rather ‘nonviolently’ in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil
system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that
the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use
immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more
so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends… Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the
stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and
fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen

40
 curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty
million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society...and see
ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her
personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an
answer for a five year old son who is asking: ‘Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?’..
There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into
the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You
express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern.
Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in
the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may
well ask: ‘How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?’ The answer lies in the fact that
there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not
only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to
disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that ‘an unjust law is no law at all.’
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A
just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that
is out of harmony with the moral law.” (King, 1963)

Fig. 34, Damn Illegals! (Rasin, 2011)

Neoliberalism, nationalism and White supremacy provide the foundation for the normalization of

deficit thinking that leads to appropriate domination. Meritocracy is the ideology that you can succeed

based on your merits and hard work alone. That, if you are not succeeding, it is solely because you are not

working hard enough. Of course, this is false because day time laborers, and various Latinos working in

physically demanding jobs would be millionaires by now. Figure 34 shows how there is a common

rhetoric of blaming Latinos as a scapegoat “other” to validate false entitlement of meritocracy.

41
Paleoconservative Pat Buchanan wrote a book titled “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to

2025?” He claims White people are facing a sort of Jim Crow style regime of discrimination.

“The question of whether or not the neoliberal capitalist economic system itself is the cause of the
disparities listed for White men is never entertained in Buchanan’s text. But we can and must
seek to extrapolate the ways in which White nationalism, as characterized by Buchanan, is
inherently caught up in neutralizing and mystifying the exploitative nature of capitalism. ‘The
immigrants took my job,’ functions on the side of capitalism in at least three ways.
First, it naturalizes the capitalist economic system itself as a taken for granted, always-ready
phenomenon that is fundamentally just and meritocratic. The White worker has a natural right to
his job, in this line of thought, and the market system is undermined by undocumented laborers
entering the workforce of another country.
Second, it fails to investigate the causes for immigrant labor in the first place. Nationalism in the
United States, by constantly insisting that we live in the greatest country on earth, we are the best
and so on, creates an illusion that the primary reason someone would immigrate here is to take a
piece of the pie, to take that is rightfully ours. But let us imagine, just briefly, the experience of
the Northern Mexican man whose family had been farming corn for generations, but could no
longer find a market for his products once NAFTA came into effect and the price of imported
corn made his own local crop obsolete. We should be surprised if he did not seek to work in the
country responsible for him no longer being able to support himself. The important thing here is
this: Undocumented immigration is an effect of the global capitalist system, of the need for
constantly greater profit without regard to local communities and actual human needs.
Third, and perhaps most critically, in lamenting that ‘immigrants took my job,’ there is never any
engagement with owners of the means of production that actually did the hiring and firing, or
laying off as the case may be. That is, we misrecognize the agentive actor in the process if we
blame the person of color rather than the capitalist, the owner of the means of production.
Thus, while at first it can seem a reach to declare that the sentiment ‘the immigrants are taking
our jobs’ functions on the side of capitalism, it should be clear that this is in fact the case. White
nationalism, with the need to exclude racial others, creates the possibility for the White actor to
never question how it is that the economic system is not set up for their benefit. By scapegoating
people of color and immigrants, White nationalism naturalizes the capitalist system and goes so
far as to blame people who are also marginalized in the very same system for their own
marginalization rather than those in power who actually made the decisions to hire, fire and invest
in the first place.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 312-313)

The third point about overlooking the role of the actual capitalist who controls the means of

production is a perfect example Donald Trump. It is his famous line, “You’re fired” from his show The

Apprentice that has aired for over 10 years that characterizes him as a capitalist. Trump has done so well

in our post-factual society to blame the Mexicans and immigrants. His supporters follow him yelling

“build a wall” and not realize how deep their appropriated dominance is.

“White nationalism then functions today in precisely the same ways it did in seventeenth-century
Virginia, where European indentured servants were given the status of ‘White’ in order to
legitimate and naturalize the accumulation of wealth by the White owners of the means of
production. Understanding the loss of one’s job in solely nationalist and racialized terms obscured

42
 from view the ways in which the system itself, and those who actually control it, functions to
limit opportunities and protect the interests of the ruling elite. It is here that we can see why
exorbitantly rich people like the Koch Brothers have an interests in funding … candidates and
initiatives in order to maintain the narrative that it is not capitalism that is the cause for so much
of the dehumanizing experiences currently being felt among so many White people, but rather the
‘other,’ the ‘not-us’ against whom White people define themselves. Nationalism in the United
States functions to legitimize capitalism, and offer scapegoats for those in power and those who
are not in power both to point to, and in solidarity, imagine themselves in opposition.”
(Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 313)

Neoliberal hegemony is embedded in a commonsense of free market principles, White

supremacy, and nationalism. Without the foundations of White supremacy and nationalism rooted in the

historical-political-social context of when and why an education system exists in the first place, the

education system would not have the same hold in producing all the authoritarians each generation after

the other. The appropriated dominance and oppression mediated by the education system and all the

other systems is directly correlated to the neoliberal hegemony entangled to the very creation of the

respective systems in their historical-political-social context.

Fig. 35, The Wall (Marlette, 2016)

We’re All “Poorly Educated”: Reproduction of all types of Authoritarians “Morons” and “Idiots”

“The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they
become.”

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Understanding the historical-political-social context of the creation of the education system

during the age of empires, enables the vital awareness required to correlate the cyclically recursive

patterns of dense interwoven neoliberal hegemony formulations the education system has. These

processes are cross-generational sociocultural reproductions of authoritarians with deep appropriated

43
domination and oppression. The role of education in society was and still is an instrument of government

and social control. The school is the state. “Education IS Enforcement” (Gabbard, 2003).

Weather it be, the original first students who were only White Christian able bodied cis-males

with wealth, in the education system going through the assembly line to become the first cogs in the

machine to learn how to administrate empires. Weather it be, boarding schools that took Native

Americans from their homes and families to “kill the Indian, and save the man” as Captain Richard Pratt

said in attempting to “Americanize” them (Pratt, 1892). Weather it be, the legalized segregation

proclaiming “separate, but equal schools.” Weather it be, students being paddled for misbehaving, or even

speaking Spanish in schools. Weather it be, having metal detectors, police dogs, and yet no quality school

supplies for the students. Weather it be, suspending a student with the punishment of not being allowed to

attend school, while school resource police officers slamming students out of their desk (Ford, 2015).

Weather it be, requiring passing a civics test similar to a citizenship test in order to graduate high school.

All of the examples above are a handful of how “education is enforcement,” authoritarian, instances that

are traumatically reinforcing the cross-generational sociocultural reproduction of the neoliberal

hegemony, but most importantly dehumanize both the oppressor and oppressed.

Fig. 36, Teacher’s Way (Webb, 2015) Fig. 37, Noam Chomsky Quote (Giroux, 2014)

44
 As education researcher Sugata Mitra stated, “It’s quite fashionable to say that the education

system’s broken—it’s not broken, it’s wonderfully constructed.” (Mitra, 2012) The education system does

not reproduce only one type of authoritarians. There are at least two main types of authoritarians that will

identified using the terminology from Abendroth and Porfilio’s book “Understanding Neoliberal Rule”

(2015). The first type of authoritarians reproduced by the education system are “morons.”

“Distinguish[ing] idiots from morons...describ[ing] them as two opposing forms of stupidity...We

can understand the moron as someone who identifies with, draws their identity from the
[neoliberal hegemony]... the rules and norms of society. As the [neoliberal hegemony] constitutes
part of the human psyche, each of us internalizes the symbolic order as it is manifest in language.
While those rules and norms guide our actions and our interactions, informing what we come to
know as ‘common sense,’ not everyone drives their identity from them, only … morons.”
(Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 113)

In other words, “morons” are authoritarians that have deep appropriated domination and

oppression, most times do not know it, and are not only the classic Trump supporters, but those that have

ever at any point rooted their identity to the neoliberal hegemony of free market principles, White

supremacy, and nationalism. Remember that the study identifying Trump supporters as authoritarians,

were Americans that favor obedience, being “good mannered”, listening to authority, willing to “giving

up essential liberties to purchase a little temporary safety” as Benjamin Franklin stated, over

independence, self-reliance, and curiosity.

Figure 37 has a quote from American linguist, historian and social critic Noam Chomsky, which

allows the image next to the quote expose the submissive manner students are taught to be, in order to not

be pushed out of the education system. Chomsky has also said, “The school system is designed to teach

obedience and conformity and prevent the child’s natural capacities from developing.” Figure 38 above

shows how some of the “child’s natural capacities” are not only prevented, but squeezed of them.

Creativity is one beautiful natural capacity that is suffocated, and punished because it goes against the

purpose of the education system’s authoritarianism.

45
 Fig. 38, Education System (Afrgaln, 2015)

Sir Robinson during his viral TED talk brought up the importance of principles needed in

empowering, rather than killing creativity. He said, “there are three principles on which human life

flourishes, and they are contradicted by the culture of education under which most teachers have to labor

and most students have to endure.” (Robinson, 2013) The first principle is “that human beings are

naturally different and diverse.” This does not go well with moron authoritarians since they want the

socialized and normalized view of what authority, an American, and capable person looks like only.

Second principle is curiosity, which moron authoritarians consequently have identified as a specific thing

not desired within their kids, in schools, and themselves because it goes against conforming. The third

and last principle is “that human life is inherently creative,” but students and teachers “follow routine

algorithms rather than to excite that power of imagination and curiosity.” Sir Robinson gives an account

on how linear and inorganic education and teachers can be sometimes with their pushy authoritarians.

“There was this guy buying a book, he was in his 30s. And I said, ‘What do you do?’ And he
said, ‘I’m a fireman.’ And I said, ‘Well, when did you decide?’ He said, ‘As a kid.’ … ‘When I
got to the senior year of school, my teachers didn’t take it seriously. This one teacher didn’t
take it seriously. He said I was throwing my life away if that’s all I chose to do with it; that I
should go to college, I should become a professional person, that I had great potential and I
was wasting my talent to do that.’ And he said, ‘It was humiliating because he said it in front of
the whole class and I really felt dreadful. But it’s what I wanted, and as soon as I left school, I
applied to the fire service and I was accepted. ‘ And he said, ‘You know, I was thinking about
that guy recently, just a few minutes ago when you were speaking, about this teacher,’ he said,
‘because six months ago, I saved his life.’ He said, ‘He was in a car wreck, and I pulled him

46
 out, gave him CPR, and I saved his wife’s life as well.’ He said, ‘I think he thinks better of me
now.’” (Robinson 2010)

There are moron authoritarian students that do so well in school because they see it is more

valued to submit to authority, be obedient, not question what they are being taught, and see it easier to

allow themselves to be dehumanized throughout their schooling in suppressing their creativity. However,

there is just as many teachers, teacher educators, administrators, and so called “schooled” people in

general that are morons and hostile towards creative teachers and creative students. Harvard Professor

Teresa Amabile has a componential theory of creativity that helps recognize within creative people

“creativity-relevant processes.” These processes allow,

“‘The ability to use wide, flexible categories for synthesizing information and the ability to break
out of perceptual and performance scripts’. Such a capacity would certainly pose a threat to the
identity and subjective leanings of any moron. What, after all, is the symbolic order, if not a
perceptual and performance script? Equally as threatening to the self-image of the moron,
creative persons also demonstrate, according to Amabile’s findings, a personality that tolerates
ambiguity. For morons, the very purpose of the symbolic order --- with its rules and norms --- is
to eliminate and repress ambiguity, and their purpose for seeking their identity in the image of the
[neoliberal hegemony] is to maximize their feelings of stability within that order. In combination,
these two dimensions of creativity-relevant processes allow people to work independently, to take
risks, and to bring fresh perspectives on problems that allow them to create new ideas. This places
them at odds with the [neoliberal hegemony] and the self-image/personality of those teachers who
identify with it and who, in so doing, define the culture of their classroom through the
enforcement of the rules and norms of the symbolic order.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 115)

Fig. 39, No Child Left Behind (Horsey, 2010) Fig. 40, Fair Selection (Harish, 2016)

Albert Einstein has a famous education quote, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by

its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Sir Robinson also stated, “A

47
system that values obedience over curiosity, isn't education, and it definitely isn't science." (2013) There

is a cycle of compliance that moron authoritarian educators and administrators in the education system

perpetuate. Within research showcased in Abendroth and Porfilio books done by Westby and Dawson,

“teachers prefer traits that seem to run counter to creativity, such as conformity and unquestioning

acceptance of authority.” (1995) They also found that teachers’ choice of their favorite students was

consequently negatively correlated to student’s creativity. The moron authoritarian teachers prefered

students who exhibited traits that were “unquestioning acceptance of authority, conformity, logical

thinking, and responsibility that make students easy to manage in the classroom.” (Abendroth & Porfilio,

2015)

In regards to attitudes towards change, there were two different personality types distinguished in

the research with educators and students. Innovational personalities displayed “an openness to experience,

a confidence in one’s own evaluations, a satisfaction in facing resolving confusion or ambiguity, and a

feeling that the world is orderly, and that the phenomenon of life can be understood and explained” (Urick

& Frymier, 1963). On the other hand, authoritarian personality is “characterized by a fear of using his

initiative, an uncertainty concerning the quality of his own judgement, and tendency to avoid frustration

and anxiety, and uneasiness in facing unresolved situations, and a tendency to see the world as arbitrary

and capricious” requiring the need to manage it (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015).

“Studies by Myers and Torrance (1962) reveal that teachers who resist change demonstrated the
characteristics of ‘authoritarianism, defensiveness, insensitivity to pupil needs, preoccupation
with information-giving functions, intellectual inertness, disinterest in promoting initiative in
pupils, and preoccupation with discipline’ (cited in Urick and Frymier, 1963, p. 109). This latter
authoritarian preoccupation with discipline reveals itself in the feedback received by teacher
education programs on surveys of their graduates in response to the question, ‘If you could have
had more instruction in one area during your years spent in teaching training, what would that
area have been?’ Invariably, in my 20 years of experience in teacher education, across four
different institutions in four different states, the most frequent response to that question has
always been ‘classroom management.’
This tells me, in light of all the research revealing their authoritarian personality that most
teachers must view the work they demand of students as being a kind of necessary drudgery.
They also view as immutable. The nature of the work is not up for questioning or challenge. It’s a
given. It’s not going to change, but why should it? It worked well enough for them.” (Abendroth
& Porfilio, 2015, p. 116-117)

48
 The cycle of compliance with authoritarians that has “worked well enough for” educators allows

the direct reproduction of moron authoritarians dehumanizing diverse divergent creative students, while

being main mediators for facilitating the reproduction of also deeply appropriated dominate and

oppressed young people. Moron authoritarians are those needing to derive their appropriately dominated

or oppressed identity from the neoliberal hegemony of free market principles, White supremacy, and

nationalism, while creating a pushy homogenous stench of entitlement to force those not conforming to

the dehumanization, be punished, removed, or even exterminated. They have been reproduced cross-

generationally by the robust education system, in order to keep the social order within the neoliberal

hegemony rooted in using people as dehumanized cogs in keeping the “bureaucratic administrative

machine” running for the benefit of the few. Nonetheless, the cycle of compliance of authoritarianism is

reproducing more than just moron authoritarians.

The second type of authoritarians reproduced by the education system are “idiots.” “Idiots and

morons are two opposing forms of stupidity.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 113) The moron is stupid

by using their appropriated dominance or oppression as their imaginary, while rooting their self-image

from the neoliberal hegemony. Idiots, then are those that do the opposite. “Idiots must become stupid by

mistaking some imaginary order to be the symbolic order...the idiot as ‘the occasionally hyper-intelligent

subject who just doesn’t ‘get it,’ who understands a situation logically, but simply misses its hidden

contextual rules’ (Zizek, 2013, pg. 1).” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 119) Idiots create a pastoral

imaginary order. This is mainly because they do not recognize the actual existence of the “symbolic

order” of neoliberal hegemony as actually existing in its fullness. Their positioning to the pastoral

imaginary order they constructed is stacked in layers of illusion.

“In this sense, the imaginary order of the political sphere was only authentically meaningful for
the elites of the market regime who served as the architects and directors of the state. For the
majority of the population, it was an illusion created only to make them feel part of something in
which they had never been fully enfranchised. On the other hand, they experienced the symbolic
order [of neoliberal hegemony] that sought to increase their utility as something far more real.
While the pastoral imagery of the state emphasized the values of autonomy and community, the
disciplinary language of the market regime privileged the values of heteronomy---submitting
one’s will to external authority---and individualism. In other words, one advances one’s own

49
 economic self-interest by doing what you are told and doing it to maximal efficiency.”
(Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 121)

Idiot authoritarians are those that allow the pastoral imaginary order to miss completely the fact

that schools are the state. They might be “woke” about some things, but when it comes to schools, they

express defence for schools. They fantasize in transforming schools forgetting the historical patterns and

notions the neoliberal hegemony holds in keeping the school and education system in its role to

reproduction of authoritarians, in order to become submissive to whoever their boss is.

“As just stated, the pastoral image of the school enforced by the messianic rule of discursive
inclusion, functions as part of a symbolic order that is larger exterior to the school, though it can
be invoked within the interior, as well---typically, to goad the conscience of noncompliant
students and critical educational theorists who might lack sufficient appreciation for the gift of
what is otherwise compulsory. To the general population, the institutional school is to be
recognized as part of a larger system of public education. Though the state collects local, state,
and federal taxes to operate the school, the school is to be experienced as a gift from the state. It
serves as a gift to the public from the state, symbolizing a transfer of the benevolence of the state
to the school. The benevolence of the school, then, originates from the benevolence of the state,
making the pastoral power of the school an element of the larger imaginary order that fuels and
sustains the pastoral power and the benevolence of the state. The state serves the public through
the gift of schools, which, in turn, serve the value of education.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p.
123)

Weather it be “critical educational theorist,” liberals, moderates, activists, non-Trump supporters,

and so on; The notion perpetuated that schools have “benevolent potential to function in contradiction to

those interests [of neoliberal hegemony] may [ironically] advance many academic careers,” political

careers, and even create a complacent warm feeling inside. However, that notion “has proven to be pure

folly.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015) Educational policy has not drastically changed to empower

educators and learners, but rather compound the neoliberal hegemony of education being enforcement.

Both president Bush Jr.’s and president Obama’s administration have left many children behind to a race

to nowhere and with the reproduction of vast numbers of more moron and idiot authoritarians. Critical

pedagogy scholar Henry Giroux has said, “Not only does neoliberalism undermine both civic education

and public values and confuse education with training, it also treats knowledge as product, promoting a

neoliberal logic that views schools as malls, students as consumers, and faculty as entrepreneurs.” (2010)

50
 Idiot authoritarians are not critical consciousness enough to realize that the education policy of

the next president is just as vital as their policy on climate change, international/foreign relations,

“economy,” health care, privatization of industries like prisons, privacy laws, and terrorism. Morons are

Trump supporters in love with the romanticized “good old days,” while idiots are the ones that jumped to

support Hillary Clinton before anyone ran against her. They are completely inconsiderate of the reality

Hillary and her husband Bill Clinton had during his administration in moving America to the necessary

level of neoliberal hegemony required for a “New Jim Crow” of mass incarceration. Michelle Alexander

is the author of the book, “The New Jim Crow” and she has pointed out clearly that the Clintons

“escalated the drug war and get tough movement far beyond what Republicans had done, while at the

same time dismantling the federal social safety net, and transferring billions of dollars away from child

welfare and housing into a prison building boom like anything the world had ever seen.” (Alexander,

2016) Through Bill Clinton's “three strikes” law in 1994 and Hillary’s comment validating the need of it

by stating, “They’re just not gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids called super

predators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have

to bring them to heel.” (Ross, 2016) The consequences of their words and policy resulted by the time

President Clinton left office in 2001 the historic and continual world record of the United States having

the highest rate of incarceration in the world (Michelle, 2016). Trump wants to bring back “law and

order,” but the Clinton’s have experience in doing this by creating a hegemonic new jim crow of mass

incarcerations already. All this is lost in the idiot’s amnesia, because in the end they are still authoritarians

too, lost in the neoliberal hegemony that is reinforced directly by all institutions, including the media. The

corporate media, which has donated millions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president.

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 Fig. 41, School to Prison (Dolan, 2016)

Trump loves the “poorly educated,” but in reality we are all “poorly educated” by the education

system. Both moron and idiot authoritarians are caught up within the neoliberal hegemony of free market

principles, White supremacy, and nationalism. The difference is morons derive their identity and seek an

authoritarian leader that fits their deep appropriated dominance or oppression, in order to keep a social

order believing they are not oppressed because they can be the oppressor. Within our post-factual society

morons seek authority figures that only validate their paradigm as fact, while violently dismissing any

other authority. The idiot does not derive their identity from the neoliberal hegemony, but in the other

hand is not immune from the socialization of it. They have blind spots because of their privilege with

each identity that is not oppressed, in turn causing layers of illusion with their appropriated dominance

and oppression. The idiot may seek to become more “woke” but living in a post-factual society allows the

comfortable feeling of “knowing enough” or reposting memes as doing enough. Idiots were caught up in

the colorblind hegemony complementing the neoliberal hegemony during all of president Obama’s

administration, until it was disrupted by the rise of Trump.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helps articulate the danger of the idiot authoritarians when he said,
“I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. The Negro's great stumbling block in
his stride towards freedom is not...the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more

52
 devoted to 'order' than justice. Shallow understanding from people of good will is more
frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.” (King, 1963)
The idiots are not that different from morons in the end because both are authoritarians capable

of electing an authority figure completely comfortable of continuing the neoliberal hegemony of free

market principles, White supremacy (even if it is colorblindness), and nationalism (even if it is not overtly

attacking the “other” but rather ignoring them to oppression death).

Fig. 42, Your Own Personal Slave (Garcia, 2016)

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Education for Liberation

"Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely.
The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

The United States of America claims to be the prime example of what a democracy should look

like. This is sometimes the excuse why they invade other countries or intervene in the country’s political

systems and leadership. In the name of getting other countries to become democratic. The word

“democratic” has nothing to do with the “Democratic” political party. This is the type of government or

process something can function as. “Social Democracy” is what Democratic presidential candidate

Senator Bernie Sanders says his leadership and ideal type of government is. It incorporates capitalist and

socialist practices by democratic means. He wanted to show he was not going to be “bought” by anyone

and was the first presidential candidate in modern history to not have a super pac, nor receive any money

from corporations and companies. He proved that even though we live in a neoliberal hegemonic society,

it is possible to represent the people, rather than the corporations.

Normalized Oligarchy

Two months before Jeb Bush suspended his presidential candidacy, and during the same month

Donald Trump proposed the “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States; the

New York Times came out with an investigation reporting that so far $176 million had been contributed

to both the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. The alarming part of this was that half of

all the money contributions had come from only 158 families. The identities of those that contributed the

majority of money are all White, rich, older males. Robert Reich who served in three national

administrations pointed this out and claims “America is now a full-scale oligarchy.” (Reich, 2015) Two

months after even Trump announced he was running for president, former president Jimmy Carter told

Oprah Winfrey, “We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that’s been the

worse damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever

seen in my life.” (Levine, 2015) A year before Hillary Clinton announced she was running again for

54
president of the United States, Princeton published their findings that for decades America has been

sliding steadily into a oligarchy. This is mirrored both in the distribution of wealth and substantive effect

of policy (or lack of).

“As Gawker's Hamilton Nolan explains, Gilens and Page's findings provide support for two
theories of governance: economic elite domination and biased pluralism. The first is pretty
straightforward and states that the ultra-wealthy wield all the power in a given system, though
some argue that this system still allows elites in corporations and the government to become
powerful as well. Here, power does not necessarily derive from wealth, but those in power almost
invariably come from the upper class. Biased pluralism on the other hand argues that the entire
system is a mess and interest groups ruled by elites are fighting for dominance of the political
process. Also, because of their vast wealth of resources, interest groups of large business tend to
dominate a lot of the discourse.” (McKay, 2014)

The neoliberal hegemony that is so dense with everyone’s socialization has allowed the actual

democracy of the United States to become an oligarchy that enables the systems to reproduce both moron

and idiot authoritarians. All authoritarians are in a paradox of being comfortable with what capitalism has

provided to them in what we call our “first world” country, while also feeling uncomfortable. The

uncomfortableness is however different for the moron and idiots. The moron authoritarian wants more

and because of their appropriated dominance or oppression, blame the “other” for not having more. The

idiot authoritarian feels guilt sometimes about being aware of oppression, but because of their lack of

stamina and critical awareness fall back to their desire to not disrupt the dehumanizing hegemony they

benefit materially from in a global context.

The irony of the final moments of the 2016 presidential election comes from Donald Trump

declaring he will refuse to accept the results if he losses on election day. So many people, including the

GOP condemned Trump on his reason for doing that because he says the election is “rigged.” Star Trek

actor George Takei even pointed out in his viral tweet, “It’s rather galling, isn’t it, to hear a billionaire,

born into money and granted every advantage, claim the system’s rigged against him.” (Takei, 2016) The

main defence of the election not being rigged from those publically calling Trump out was that the United

States is a democracy. In direct response to Trump's refusal to accept the final results, even first lady

Michelle Obama said, “You do not keep American democracy ‘in suspense,’ because look, too many

people have marched and protested, and fought and died for this democracy...For the record, our

55
democracy is revered around the world, and free elections are the best way on Earth to choose our leaders.

This is how we elected John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, two George Bushes, and Barack Obama. Its has

worked for decades.” (Fang, 2016)

There have been many who have died, marched, and protested to open up the right for more and

more of the “other” to be included as full citizens by having the right to vote over the years. American

historian Howard Zinn has said, “Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is

absolutely essential to it.” (1997) Nonetheless, President John F. Kennedy who was assassinated in a so

called democracy warned, "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all." (1963)

The 2016 presidential election has shown how the role of the education system is vital in the manner

voters and nonvoters allow the candidates to reflect their level and type of authoritarian leader. The type

of education system will mirror the choices. Author “Peaceful Revolution” Paul K. Chappell hinted,

"When people in a democracy are not educated in the art of living --- to strengthen their conscience,

compassion, and ability to question and think critically --- they can be easily manipulated by fear and

propaganda. A democracy is only as wise as its citizens, and a democracy of ignorant citizens can be as

dangerous as a dictatorship." (2009)

The manner the education system is used by the state through policy, enforcement, socialization,

and management of the neoliberal hegemony will continue to reproduce both moron and idiot

authoritarians. This, the neoliberal hegemony hold on the education system, threatens the vision of

democracy in the government and society that the founding fathers of the United States had. The New

York Times published an op-ed after the last presidential debate titled “The Dangers of Hillary Clinton.”

It exposes how the neoliberal hegemony is not going anywhere if Hillary Clinton is elected as president.

56
 Fig. 44, Oligarchy Rigging 101 (Kim, 2016)

Fig. 43, Who do you want in power? (2016)

“The dangers of a Hillary Clinton presidency are more familiar than Trump’s authoritarian
unknowns, because we live with them in our politics already. They’re the dangers of elite
groupthink, of Beltway power worship, of a cult of presidential action in the service of dubious
ideals. They’re the dangers of a recklessness and radicalism that doesn’t recognize itself as either,
because it’s convinced that if an idea is mainstream and commonplace among the great and good
then it cannot possibly be folly...One can look at Trump himself and see too much danger of still-
deeper disaster, too much temperamental risk and moral turpitude, to be an acceptable alternative
to this blunder-ridden status quo … while also looking at Hillary Clinton and seeing a woman
whose record embodies the tendencies that gave rise to Trumpism in the first place.
Indeed what is distinctive about Clinton, more even than Bush or Obama, is how few examples
there are of her ever breaking with the elite consensus on matter of statecraft.” (Douthat, 2016)

Fight for, Education for Liberation

“Maybe it’s time to think together about what schooling could be if we truly saw it as the bedrock of

democracy—if we imagined we cared enough for the future of democracy to put everything we have into

using schools toward such an end. We need something to fight FOR, not just against.” -Deborah Meier

As one of the founders of the modern small schools movement, Deborah Meier said, “We need

something to fight FOR, not just against.” Education for liberation must resist the roots of neoliberal

hegemony, which are free market principles, White supremacy, nationalism, oppression, and

dehumanization for the benefit of a few. If our education is an authoritarian education that favors

57
obedience, order, standardization, conformity, not questioning those in authority, over curiosity,

creativity, self-reliance, independence, critical thinking, empathy, and democracy; It should not surprise

anyone that an authoritarian education reproduces all types of appropriated dominate and oppressed

authoritarians that in turn allow the neoliberal hegemony give way for an oligarchy.

It is a democratic education that will not “produce,” but will enable individuals that are diverse, to

become empowered empathic critically conscious active participants and leaders of a democracy they co-

create with each other. The type of education system the state has will reflect the type of

leaders/authorities available. It will reflect the very type of government it functions as, while also whose

interests the government represents. A democratic education that focuses on education for liberation

through anti-hegemonic, anti-oppressive, and various critical pedagogies over having an authoritarian

education, will start to dismantle the dehumanizing, oppressive, violent neoliberal hegemony that allows

our current reality of oligarchy and authoritarian reign.

Anti-hegemonic education will help disrupt and stop the production of both idiots and moron

authoritarians. One start to that is Critical Reflective Practice (CRP), which “involves a constant bending

back towards the self as a primary source for critique and inquiry and the connecting of one’s inner world

with outer structures that shape identity and experience” (Pluim, 2014). CRP allows the learner to

investigate the manners we all are vested and locked into maintaining the hegemonic order.

“CRP is a significant component of counter-hegemonic education because it engages ‘with

difficult questions about our social-identity positions, assumptions, biases, beliefs, privileges,
values, and behaviours, as well as inquiring into the complex and difficult ways that these
perspectives are implicated in transnational harm’ (Pluim, 2014). The productive outcome is the
mobilization of critique for transformative possibility and a more equitable world. In sum, the
important role in education --- particularly for educating teacher educators --- is the awareness of,
and resistance to, hegemony. This can be done in several ways… that we are experimenting with
our practice to resist the operationalization and consequences of hegemony.” (Abendroth &
Porfilio, 2015, p. 305)

Anti-hegemonic education shifts the education system to take ownership through practice and

affirmation, its role in socialization, (de)constructing hegemony, and reflecting what society should look

58
like in terms of interpersonal, systemic, and communal empowerment, rather than dehumanization and

oppression of any individual/learner.

“What is needed in today’s world is an educational approach that creates the basis for a powerful
anti-hegemonic complementary pluralism within which individual differences come together with
genuinely creative power to enrich the collective without consuming it through defensive and
competitive forms of ethnic, racial, and/or linguistic atomization. We must create in students the
habit of thinking in terms of whole systems so as to be able to identify patterns, make
connections, and fully understand the complex reciprocal interdependencies that make up the
interlocking webs of multiple systems in which the ‘human fly’ is forever caught. Students must
be taught how to develop what Orr (2004) terms ‘a more inclusive rationality’.” (Abendroth &
Porfilio, 2015, p. 351)

Anti-hegemonic education becomes a reality in practice through various critical pedagogies.

“If critical thinking is to align with a democratic vision of schooling, it must reflect a
commitment to praxis. This commitment is how Burbules and Berk (1999) characterized the
goals of critical pedagogy. Shifting the language from critical thinking to critical literacy, critical
pedagogy, or critical consciousness is important for orienting thinking and learning skills toward
democratic ideals. This shift can encourage attention to the use of thinking and learning for
democratic processes and the mitigation of their impediments, rather than the dehumanized
completion of intellectual tasks for the pursuit of self-benefit.” (Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p.
327)

There is caution in using critical pedagogies for anti-hegemony and other so called “higher order

thinking” (HOT) that might be tangled in the education system’s neoliberalism hegemony, in order to

actually move towards a democratic education vision of schooling.

“A commitment to teach HOT seems appealing because it ostensibly reflects resistance to a

neoliberal vision of schooling. However, such a commitment may actually endorse neoliberalism
and erode democratic citizenship. When HOT is an institutionalized goal that is universally
designed for all students in an effort to prepare them to compete and navigate the twenty-first
century economy, there is a clear endorsement of a neoliberal agenda...If one wanted to resist
neoliberalism, they do not necessarily have to reject thinking and learning skills. They could
reject organizing the self around market principles of economic instrumentalism, individualism,
efficiency, consumption, self-betterment, and productivity. However, more important is the need
for an explicit notice of the kind of self that is inscribed. Both the communal self and historical
nonself can serve as constructions of selfhood that support a democratic vision of schooling.”
(Abendroth & Porfilio, 2015, p. 331-332)

59
 Fig. 45, Liberation (Maguire, 2016)

Anti-hegemonic education is anti-oppressive education. When it is focused on co-creating a

democratic education through various critical pedagogies, the educators in the education system enable

the learners to become empowered empathetic critically conscious individuals prepared to take action in

society and their community to dismantle anything that is dehumanizing through creative and divergent

ways. An important method to countering and unlearning oppression is restorative practices. Research

and implementation of a School-wide Positive and Restorative Discipline in Oregon has resulted in “there

was a reduction of the impact of race/ethnicity and sexual orientation on student perceptions of fairness

and bullying and harassment, and there was a reduction in both numbers of office discipline referrals and

racial disparities.” (Skiba, Mediratta, & Rausch, 2016)

Restorative practices use research-based methods that allow the harm to be addressed, while not

shaming any of the people involved. It focuses on using any incident of where a bias incident happened as

a learning opportunity, and prime time to build empathy. Since the Trump Era has already shown to have

a huge increase in hate crimes, harassment, and bullying focused on identities both inside and outside the

schools; It is even more vital to fight fire with water and firefighters, rather than fire. In other words, fight

bigotry, racism, ignorance, not with dehumanizing, shaming, or disciplinary actions, but with restorative

60
practices that allow conversation, learning, and all participants to be humanized, in order to address the

root of the problem, which is ignorance and empathy. Once schools start modeling not only democratic,

but anti-oppressive education, and restorative practices, the empowerment of all learners will also

transform the communities and nation.

Conclusion

So, how much of a Trump supporter is the US Education system? Simply, it’s a deep

authoritarian one that is realizing quickly that Trump as the President-elect is actually dangerous and it is

actually themselves who has had the opportunity the whole time to stop him. It has always been our

education system that has had the opportunity to become the institution to drastically change how our

society empowers, rather than oppress the next generation to become empathic life-long learners that

know in practice how democracy works, creativity is never punished, and being diverse divergent

individuals who flourish.

However, the reality now in the Trump Era is that the era is not colorblindness hegemony

anymore as the form of White Supremacy and Nationalism, but a full throttle of fascist violent hate, and

oppression of anyone deemed as the “other”. The two strongholds of the neoliberal hegemony, White

Supremacy and Nationalism are stronger and attacking aggressively constantly through policy,

institutions, and in person daily. The Trump Era has allowed a new phase of neoliberal hegemony to rise,

especially in relation to the education system. To remind briefly, Betsy DeVos is President-elect’s pick

for secretary of education. She did not attend any public schools or send her children to them. Not only

does she not have any personal experiences as a student or parent of public schools, she has no experience

teaching, running a university, school system or state education agency, or even overseeing public

education as an elected official in any level. (Klein, 2016)

Education for liberation, to fight for something and not just against is what the focus should be.

Education for liberation can and does happen daily already. There are teachers who use CRP to not be

moron nor idiot authoritarians. There are teacher educators that share wisdom to teachers about not

focusing on “class management,” other authoritarian, or neoliberal paradigms, but rather anti-oppressive

61
and democratic education. In turn, there is a dent to the production in the “bureaucratic administrative

machine” in producing both moron and idiot authoritarian young people. Young people with

opportunities and experiences with anti-oppressive and democratic education through various critical

pedagogies become empathic critical conscious leaders to their peers, families, schools, and communities.

Each individual has the responsibility to become aware of what type of authoritarian they are and

how deep their appropriated dominance and oppression is, in order to fully address it. Everyone also has

the opportunity to influence young people, peers, family members, and policy makers to choose empathy,

compassion, and empowerment over fear, hate and oppression. Each person has the power to prioritize

their own learning of how they can take action in not oppressing others.

As Audre Lorde said, in the end, “the true focus of revolutionary change is never the oppressive

situation which we seek to escape, but the piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within us.” In the

Trump Era, it is ever more needed and important to be our best authentic selves, while making sure we

allow others to develop that too by not oppressing them. That revolutionary action will counter the exact

hegemony that allowed the Trump Era to become the current reality. There is potential to have education

for liberation during the Trump Era. The Trump Era is the opportunity that allows less room for people to

be natural and requires everyone to take charge of their role in education for liberation. Only then will the

United States move from an authoritarian neoliberal country into a democratically empowered one that

allows the potential of each individual to flourish through it’s authenticity.

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