Georgia Recorder columnist Jay Bookman writes that the campaign to deconstruct our public education system is not driven by popular demand but by a relative handful of extremely rich, extremely ideological campaign donors around the country. (Getty Images)

In its attempt to shove school vouchers down the throat of reluctant voters, Georgia Republicans have argued that the state’s existing structure of public schools is not capable of providing an adequate education to many students, especially to those in “failing schools.”

If that’s true, it’s basically an admission of failure by the GOP, since that party has dominated Georgia politics, and Georgia education policy, for more than two decades now. But it also creates a problem of a different sort.

You see, in the words of the Georgia Constitution:

“The provision of an adequate public education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia.”

Note the terms “primary obligation” and, even more importantly, “adequate public education.” Not private. Public. That’s the duty that the constitution confers upon those in charge.

By telling us that the state is not providing an adequate public education, Georgia’s current political leadership, including Gov. Brian Kemp, is telling us that in its own judgment it is failing to perform its constitutional duties.

That puts them in a bit of a pickle.

In Senate Bill 233, the private-school voucher program that now stands on the precipice of passage, the General Assembly attempts to hand-wave its way out of that dilemma. The bill states that creation of a voucher program – a program supposedly justified because our schools are inadequate — “shall not be construed to imply that a public school did not provide a free and appropriate public education … or constitute a waiver or admission by the state.”

So we are supposed to believe that our public school system is simultaneously failing and not failing.

Here’s what we do know. We know that schools in lower-income areas are usually those most likely to face challenges, and we know that Georgia is one of only six states in the country that does not provide additional state funding to school systems serving large numbers of children from low-income families. The General Assembly could fund such a program, but instead is choosing to fund private-school vouchers.

Under SB 233, it is allocating up to $141 million a year to help students in lower-performing schools “escape” into supposedly better-performing private schools.

(Based on years of research, most of those private schools will not be better-performing.)

And based on the trajectory of voucher programs in other states, that $141 million is a mere down payment on what’s to come. Next year they’ll come back for more, and then more, and then much much more. It happens every time, in every state.

Initially, the Georgia voucher is limited to a maximum of $6,000, plus a $500 transportation subsidy. That $6,000 is nowhere near enough to allow poor families to cover tuition for a quality private-school education, which costs two to five times that much. But it’s a nice subsidy for upper middle-class families already paying for a private-school education, which is how most vouchers will be used.

Under the provisions of SB 233, the only students eligible for vouchers are those who live in school districts ranked in the bottom 25% of Georgia school districts. That provision may seem like a good-faith attempt to limit vouchers to where they would supposedly do the most good, but again, based on the trajectory of other states, the limitation will be only temporary. It will be eliminated as soon as it is politically feasible to do so.

All across the country, it’s the same pattern. What we’re witnessing is the gradual, persistent, conscious erosion of the public education system. And once we allow that foundation to crumble, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible to rebuild. In some states that are farther down that road, we’re already seeing calls to use public tax money to build the physical infrastructure for private schools, which would then be owned not by the taxpayers who paid for them, but by the non-profit or in some cases for-profit private schools.

And here’s what’s most galling: This campaign to deconstruct our public education system – a system described in our state constitution as a primary obligation of state government — is not driven by popular demand. In every state that vouchers have been put on the ballot, they have been thoroughly rejected. Even Georgia Republicans, with an overwhelming advantage in both the House and Senate, can barely scrape together legislative majorities to pass vouchers.

Instead, the campaign is being driven by a relative handful of extremely rich, extremely ideological campaign donors around the country. Their message has been clear in every state that has adopted vouchers: If you want their campaign money, you must do their bidding.

And Gov. Brian Kemp wants their campaign money.

This commentary is republished from the Georgia Recorder, a sister publication of the Kentucky Lantern and part of States Newsroom.

Rudy Giuliani continues to embrace the Big Lie even after the evidence of his own self-deception trickled down his cheek. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Rudy Giuliani has no regrets.

No regrets, he says, for falsely accusing two election workers of stealing a presidential election here in Georgia.

No regrets for coming to the state Capitol bearing “proof” that the two workers had been secretly passing vote-filled memory cards between them, “as if they’re vials of heroin or cocaine.”

In Rudy’s mind, it’s all good. No regrets for exposing Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman to death threats and racist attacks; no regrets for driving them out of their homes and employment, for focusing the considerable rage of Trump Nation upon innocent people guilty of no more than doing their job.

No regrets, Giuliani said this week outside the D.C. courthouse where Moss and Freeman are suing him for damages. No regrets, because “everything I said about them is true.”

Except, not really.

They tell us truth is a stubborn thing, but lies and liars can be stubborn too. Lies beget lies, which beget more lies, and lies told often and with fervor, as Rudy tells his lies, can themselves become a form of truth, except not really. And the most beautiful lies, the most beguiling lies, are the intentional lies that you tell yourself, to deceive yourself, lies that give you permission to do what you most want to do, what you know you should never do.

Like plot to overthrow a legitimate election, and thus end the republic.

But hey, no regrets.

We occupy a time when reality can be made to appear less than concrete, when various bits of misinformation can be collected and then reassembled, like interchangeable pieces in a Lego set, to create a reality that is more to your liking. But, not really.

In a world so fungible, why believe that Donald Trump lost the election, when that belief is painful and costly to you? When truth tells us things that we’d rather not know, why accept that truth when so many more attractive options are available?

“Of course I don’t regret it. I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes.”
To acknowledge the truth that Trump lost is to acknowledge yourself as a liar and a fraud, as a pathetic husk of the man that you once thought yourself to be, that much of the world thought you to be. Only by stubbornly clinging to this illusion can you still pretend to be the man of substance and honor, the man you are not.

And of course, Giuliani is far from alone; he is one of tens of millions. You commit to the bit, to believe but not to think. You stick to the lies because the truth will almost kill you, because the truth will cost you friends and votes and social standing while believing the lie, pretending to believe the lie, brings you a peace. Except not really.

It is so tempting to pretend, especially when so many are so willing to pretend alongside you, an army of pretenders, shoulder to shoulder, each ensuring that the other will not falter in their pretense, in the hope that by this pretense a new reality will be forced upon the world.

So, onward marches the army of pretenders. The longer they march, the longer the retreat should they turn back, so their only hope is to march onward. The cost of honesty is high, and all comes due at once. The marginal cost of believing each new lie is low.

Onward.

Onward, because if you admit the lie, your Lego world will crumble. Admit the lie, and you admit that what followed the lie was a crime. Admit the lie, and you admit that January 6 was indeed an insurrection, Donald Trump is indeed a would-be dictator and it is not you but Liz Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, Brad Raffensperger and Mike Pence who are the heroes.

Admit the lie, and you cannot in good conscience support the return of Trump to the White House. So you don’t admit the lie.

Onward.

The modern Republican Party comprises tens of millions of people united in defense of that same lie, a lie that many if not most know to be a lie but that few will dare to admit, because by admitting the lie you banish yourself to the wilderness, like Liz Cheney.

The Republican Party is Rudy Giuliani, pathetic Rudy at Four Seasons Total Landscaping, desperate Rudy with the hair dye running down his face, Rudy with the evidence of his own self-deception trickling down his cheek, a black jagged mark that stains more than hair, a stain that will be his mark of Cain in American history.

He knows it’s there. He feels it dribbling down his jaw, but he dare not reach for it, for to touch it is to acknowledge its reality, so he does not. The existential threat is to admit the truth, so do not admit the truth. Deny the truth by any means available.

Rage, rage against admittance of the truth.

This commentary is republished from Georgia Recorder, a sister publication of Kentucky Lantern and part of?States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and donors as a 501c(3) public charity.?