By Bob Hoge | 8:00 AM on November 30, 2022
(The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.)
Former Secretary of State and possible 2024 presidential candidate Mike Pompeo thinks he knows who is the most dangerous person in the world. It’s not Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, or even Joe Biden; nope, it’s teachers union boss Randi Weingarten. While she doesn’t currently possess nuclear weapons, she’s been busy the last few years nuking the nation’s educational system.
Pompeo told Semaphore in a November 21 interview:
I tell the story often — I get asked “Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?” The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten. It’s not a close call.
If you ask, “Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?” It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing.
If you think he was being hyperbolic or imagine he wishes he’d pulled back a little, you’d be wrong. Pompeo, once a congressman, doubled down on his opinion in a Tuesday editorial in the NY Post:
I fear America is on a path to disintegration due to persistent failures in our education system. American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten and her fellow travelers have crippled our nation’s schools. The danger she presents to our nation is clear and real and exceeds that of all the bad guys I battled abroad for four years as secretary of state and CIA director. I said she’s the most dangerous person in America because it is true. Her power, her ideas and her anti-student policies must be confronted.
I and others at RedState have no love for Weingarten, and have strongly criticized her in the past because of her stance on school closures. She mercilessly advocated for schools to remain shuttered for as long as possible even as evidence mounted that it was gravely harming our children.
Here she is hyperventilating over the latest looming public health threat to our country. I thought we had (the thankfully retiring) Fauci for medical fear porn—shouldn’t Weingarten be focused on something else, like, maybe, education?
Pompeo wasn’t done:
…America is more likely to be lost if we do not retake our schools from radical and progressive forces. Elements in our midst are betraying our children’s futures by denying them the opportunities education confers. Failing to teach math, science, real history and civics and, importantly, to imprint America as the most exceptional nation in civilizational history on the hearts and minds of the next generation dooms America and the world that counts on us.
He goes on to describe how American students are falling far behind their counterparts in China, Poland, Estonia, and South Korea. He criticizes the focus on woke education even as we witnessed the largest-ever drop in mathematics scores. Pompeo also laments the fact that we have given up on teaching the nation’s history in favor of a progressive (some would say, regressive) agenda:
Critical race theory and the 1619 Project derive from Marxist precepts; they do not reflect the greatness and the power of the American experiment. Today, only 1 in 3 Americans could pass the citizenship test. The absence of the “reverence for the Constitution and its Laws,” to quote Abraham Lincoln, risks what he called “mobocratic” rule. These repudiations of our nation foster division and ignorance, not reconciliation.
Students will not fulfill their ambitions through diversity training based on the color of their skin or their religion. They will realize their dreams in the world’s interconnected economy by being able to compete successfully with young people in every other nation. To do so, they must comprehend the legacy they inherit.
America’s founding was a watershed in world history. Our nation is exceptional. China, Russia and Iran destroy human initiative; America allows it to flourish.
These are powerful words—opinions that too few feel free to express anymore—and give me new respect for Pompeo. Naturally, the toxic Weingarten clapped back:
“If he wants to engage in a real discussion about what children need to thrive, how to strengthen public education, or the importance of treating teachers with respect, fine with me, but I will not be a prop for Mr. Pompeo’s presidential ambitions,” she wrote. She means that she has no intention of debating Pompeo, as he requested in his article, and has zero plans to defend her actions unless it’s in front of a fawning audience.
She would much rather just let Joe Biden and the mainstream media continue to run cover for her as she tears down U.S. education and uses the nation’s children to fill union coffers and amass more power.