Overtime – Episode #591: Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Bret Stephens, Chloé Valdary

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Welcome to an HBO podcast from the HBO late night series, Real Time with Bill Maher.

Okay, we're back on over soon.

Okay, welcome back.

Welcome to the panel.

Republicans have focused a lot of their strategy on school reform and parental rights.

Oh, yeah, Mitch McConnell says we're the party of parents now, which has been wildly popular.

It has been.

What should the Democrats' response be?

Has it been widely popular?

Is that a big it has been?

Yeah, okay.

Specifically related to DEI and code of quarry theory, especially.

So, DEI being diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Right, and you teach a course in there.

I mean,

do a,

what is it called?

We do it.

I guess we had it here.

I mean, every corporation does it now.

Yeah.

So, theory of enchantment is an anti-racism training, but it's different from the kind of D'Angelo model that's pervasive in a lot of schools.

Robin D'Angelo, the author of White Fragility.

Yeah, thank you, sorry.

And the difference between what she does and what we do is our anti-racism training is fundamentally trying to teach people how to love, which is really difficult.

It's really difficult.

And

we understand that racism and supremacy is a kind of overcompensation for an inferiority complex.

That is really what it ultimately is.

And if you want to challenge that, then you have to treat people how to be in the right relationship with themselves and to accept the complexity of themselves so that they don't overcompensate by projecting the parts that they don't like about themselves onto the other.

What do you think about just the general idea of forcing people to take away?

It's never going to work.

And it's going to backfire because people will resent you for it, and then they'll be more likely to adopt the views that are prejudiced that you're trying to make it.

I mean, honestly, when they make us do it, it's like, I could see having to do it if, like, you know, like I had a DUI once.

What?

It's like, okay, you made me go, then they made you go to like AA meetings, which I do this bullshit because, like, I'm not an alcoholic.

Okay, you got me driving a little over the limit.

You're right.

I remember it was 30 years ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I had leopard shoes on.

The cop was going to arrest me.

I remember it like this.

So, but, like, why should I, when I made you go to AA meetings, and I would not say when people stood up and went, I'm Al and I'm alcoholic.

I'm not an alcoholic.

I'm not saying you're fucking indoctrinated pledge.

But I get that I had to pay a price because I did it.

But, like, to make me angry.

But that's the problem with, I mean, I've also gone through multiple DI trainings, and it feels like it's a product of a bureaucracy.

It feels like it's being shoved down your throat.

Everyone sits there politely, doesn't really engage except in platitudes.

I mean, real DEI training ought to be a practice you do every day with yourself in terms of trying to be a better human being, not something that you have to go through once a year to check a box for whatever corporation you're working for.

I mean, I honestly just think the repugnants are bullshitting.

This has nothing to do with education.

This is just a tool for them.

They don't really care about education.

They don't really care about parents.

If they cared, they would have voted with us to keep schools open, to actually fund schools.

They would actually, we had the American CARES Act.

They didn't vote for that.

We had money in there so that way kids could actually have free lunch program during the summers because

people couldn't go to school and send their kids and eat there.

Vote against that.

They want to take care of kids and parents.

Okay, where are you when it comes to child tax credit?

That eliminates 60% of child poverty.

They don't give a fuck.

No, they just care about kids.

and schools when it's a wedge issue.

That's it.

So now it's CTC, now it's DEI, next year it'll be something else, as long as it's a way for them to actually win.

But down at the court, they don't care about it.

You don't think

I'm sorry.

No.

And this is

a

10 years that I've been at least involved in politics in Arizona.

Every year, public schools get cut by the Republicans there.

Every year.

They don't care about those kids then, so why do they also care about now?

The party became the party, at least at the state levels, of school closures, of being beholden to being beholden to unions, and of not giving parents choices to get out of failing public school systems, which they deserve, particularly

underserved minorities.

And that's a huge issue.

And I think Democrats are not...

They haven't cared about minorities forever until it actually matters to them to win elections.

So this is where Mike Bloomberg has...

That's all I'm going to do.

Mike Bloomberg has been driving the Democratic Party in the right direction.

Democrats should adopt every opportunity to give parents more control over the education of their children.

And I I think Democrats are just harming them.

There's nothing wrong with giving parents more control.

I think that's why it's called a school closure.

It's not a conservative or liberal issue.

We want to have our kids learning productively in school, actually seeing one another because they're not at risk of giving each other.

There's no school closures happening right now.

There's this idea that this massive school closure that's happened around.

There is no school closure.

What's happening right now is there's some teachers that are still sick and they don't have enough teachers.

But this idea that there's massive school closure, it's propaganda.

It's not true.

But what about this broader issue that Brett is bringing up, which is the Democrat refusal to endorse school choice, which parents from all walks of life, from all political parties, endorse because they want to be able to influence the schools that their children go to, especially when they would not normally have access to that because of economic issues and access in general?

Well, first of all, I think parents should always be involved and should have full access to the education for their kids, right?

They should have control over the school boards.

They should not be, you know, you have a right to know what's happening in your school and you have a right to say what's happening there.

When we talk about school choice, if it was actually a true choice, I would get that.

But what we've seen in Arizona is that most of the time, the choice only ends up helping those people that are already helping themselves.

The richer, better off, end up finding themselves in the better charter schools, and at the same time, they end up gutting the poor schools, the kids of color.

And once in a while, yes, we see some great stories, and they'll bring a couple of Latino kids out and say, look, they're really good at this prep school.

But the rest of the time, the actual schools that are really training 90% of the kids, the minority kids, the kids in very poor neighborhoods, they end up getting gutted on the altar of school choice.

So then why don't we just expand access for kids who can't afford it to go to better quality schools that

are able to govern themselves, set their rules, are independent of the unions,

if that's the choice that they make.

And that's where I think Democrats are just losing a huge opportunity to win back America.

Well, I think this idea that you being a child.

I don't have kids.

We have kids.

Love it.

We have kids.

Oh, yeah.

That's great.

You have kids already?

I have a five-year-old, yeah.

Oh, well.

And you have kids, yeah.

Okay.

And it's very popular.

Even celebrities do it.

I've never understood it.

There's still time.

All right.

There's still time.

I'm going to wrap this up.

Very enlightening.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you.

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