A mock civil war is raging between bogus National Parents Union and sham Parents Defending Education and only one man can feign to suppress it: Charles Koch.
Koch funds both National Parents Union and (almost certainly) Parents Defending Education so he has a fantasy moral obligation to pretend to step in.
The latest blanks in this pillow fight were fired when plastic PDE and other pseudo parent groups sued actual Secretary Miguel Cardona over his including counterfeit NPU on the genuine Department of Education’s National Parents and Families Engagement Council. Imitation PDE complains that its Koch-bankrolled viewpoints are not represented and fraudulent NPU’s Koch-bankrolled viewpoints are. Protecting school children from gun violence, for instance. Fabricated PDE has avoided the topic since Uvalde, an odd non-position for a group that says it protects children. Contrived NPU president Keri Rodrigues on the other hand has sent a letter about gun violence to President Biden. Sure the letter mostly blames Biden and not the filibustering Republican senators who support Koch and corporate NPU’s privatization policies, but still. It’s something.
Why, veteran Koch operative and PDE president Nicole Neily even called out counterfeit NPU in a blast email to her eager followers over an issue that made-up PDE completely made up!
If you don’t find the imaginary internal dispute in Kochlandia heartbreaking enough, consider the simulated human element among the loyal employees. Pint sized Portuguese pundit (whoops, I meant Latina mom) Rodrigues and PDE second-in-command Erika Sanzi were once besties, the sole inhabitants of Planet Mom.
You know how it is, one is a white backlash propagandist and the other is a pint sized Portuguese pundit and/or Latina mom civil rights champion, so you paper over your differences because you share a tiny planet and are both lavishly paid to attack public education. Who among us hasn’t been in this situation?
You want more artificial angst? Here’s Ms. Sanzi in 2017 opening her heart to Ms. Rodrigues: “I consider her a partner in this work. And a friend.”
But now, there’s only this:
And if you aren’t blubbering crocodile tears yet, you are one somewhat callous S.O.B.
Can’t there be impostor peace in the valley? Ms. Sanzi goes on Fox News to attack unions. Ms. Rodrigues goes on Fox News to attack unions. These two crazy kids are so close but so far apart!
Koch is destroying Planet Earth but there’s no reason he shouldn’t fake stepping in to save Planet Mom. It’s his money, for real.
[Full disclosure: as a (now retired) educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, democracy, and oligarchy. My book, Dark Money and the Politics of School Privatization, is now in print.]
