Teachers union launches postelection fear campaign

OPINION:

The pain of losing an election sometimes spawns odd offspring. Here’s one: terror at the prospect of Donald Trump taking office as president. Saddest of all, the political players in our schools are doing everything they can to promote that fear.

One recent example came from Becky Pringle, head of the National Education Association, the wealthy and powerful union allied with the Democratic Party’s extreme left.

“Friends, we woke up today to a world that feels darker than it did yesterday,” Ms. Pringle posted on Facebook after it was clear Mr. Trump had won a resounding mandate.

Ms. Pringle went on to speak of “profound anxiety for the future of our country.” Ms. Pringle wrote that she has also heard about “families and communities” fearing for their safety and that “the lives of our students are on the line.” Ms. Pringle predicted her side “would triumph” over her opponents.

This lofty talk inevitably leads to her punch line that would make any propagandist proud: “We will reject hatred and division.”

So, Becky Pringle, head of a powerful political organization that bullies good teachers while exploiting them through deceptively named teachers unions, has taken a stand against hatred and division — at the end of a statement filled with hatred and division.

As self-righteous, sanctimonious talk goes, this is pretty good stuff. It’s just that it’s such a cliche and so trite. And it is obviously a projection — a device where one ascribes to opponents the very characteristics that define the speaker. In other words, gaslighting.

Take just one example: destroying “our democracy.” This term, democracy, gets kicked around quite a bit by Ms. Pringle and her allies on the hard left. As Lenin did to Russians, they manipulate the meaning of words and falsely ascribe to their opponents’ words and deeds that flatly oppose our Constitution and laws.

But Ms. Pringle’s side is the one challenging the Constitution. It proposes packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the Electoral College, admitting the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to Congress, censoring foes’ speech and letting millions of foreign nationals illegally enter the country unscreened.

These attacks on our Constitution are doing massive injury to “our democracy.” Yet Ms. Pringle’s opponents don’t support a single one.

The deception doesn’t end there. Pointedly as to education, Ms. Pringle and her side have literally passed laws against parental rights and funded the elections and policies of politicians who sicced the FBI on parents, labeling them “domestic terrorists.”

And while claiming it will “win our students the future they deserve,” Ms. Pringle’s group prohibits parents from sending their kids to schools that give them a better chance at success than they’ll get in public school, where fewer than half the children can read or perform math at grade level. 

Ms. Pringle’s union pushes transgender ideology and sexualizing children without their parents’ knowledge or consent, promoting Black Lives Matter and angry protesting in our schools, dumbing down the curriculum and more. Yet she claims to be for families.

Again, like Lenin, her end (power) justifies the means (lying).

Ms. Pringle’s is one of a chorus of similar trite expressions of horror. Search “election aftermath fear” online and read about the violence these people predict. NPR even assembled a team of experts before the election to beat the idea half to death.

The American Psychological Association plays along, citing stress about “the future of our nation” from a Harris Poll the association commissioned.

It’s pretty disingenuous when the American Psychological Association uses a psychological operation to manipulate people into fear. 

Then, writing about the poll, the APA’s Tania Israel says the fear is rational because of what she called “the January 6 insurrection” and “multiple assassination attempts” on “a presidential candidate.” The psychologist’s work is quoted largely by left-leaning organizations such as Ms. Pringle’s.

As usual, the National Education Association and its allies are mischaracterizing things to scare Americans who don’t know better because they were robbed of a good education by these same bad actors.

And for the record, Ms. Pringle doesn’t represent the actions or desires of great teachers.

Here’s a response from teachers whose voices are squelched by the group:

“By framing this moment solely through the lens of your own political views, you are alienating a significant portion of the very educators you claim to represent. Many of us woke up this morning with a sense of hope for what appeared to be a crumbling republic. … The notion that we must ‘reject hatred and division’ should apply equally to the internal dynamics of this association.”

And there you have it, America. Let’s reject the NEA’s manufactured horror and their nasty propaganda outright.

• Rebecca Friedrichs is the founder of For Kids and Country, the author of “Standing Up to Goliath” and a 28-year public school teacher who was lead plaintiff in Friedrichs v. CTA. Roger Ruvolo is a longtime newspaper editor and a contributor to For Kids & Country.