Now on the right side of the ring, weighing in with millions of dollars in campaign contributions is the newly nominated heavy weight Secretary of Education, Linnnda McMaaahon. And, on the left side of the mat – America’s children.
I feel comfortable playing the ring announcer for how this all might go. You see, I started my career as a broadcaster. Twenty-five years ago, I was the guest ring announcer for McMahon’s old wrestling company when they put on a show in Bangor, Maine. Of course, much like politics, it was nearly impossible to get into the ring – Rowdy Roddy Piper had to help me by pulling the lowest rope down so I could crawl over it.
But, like me in that ring, with the help of her strongmen allies, McMahon has gone from World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to politics. You might say from one highly financed bluster-filled arena with fake adversaries and pre-planned wins and losses, to another.
McMahon and her husband, Vince McMahon, have been long-time friends and big financial supporters of the incoming president. Together, the married couple come in at 2oth place on the roster of fat-cats padding Donald J Trump’s various campaigns. And while their contributions over the years are in the tens of millions, it hasn’t all been one way. In 2012 – Mrs. McMahon ran for a Connecticut U.S. Senate seat, and Trump donated $5,000 to her campaign.
Like pro-wrestling, political appointments have always been slanted. Trump isn’t the first president to reward donors with cushy jobs based on the whims or desires of these benefactors.
Joseph P. Kennedy – the father of late President Kennedy and the grandfather of RFK, Jr., the man Trump nominated to “remake healthcare” – got a cushy ambassadorship in the UK from Franklin Delano Roosevelt after kicking in substantial support to FDR’s 1932 campaign. Mind you, prior to that cushy post, the only experience Ambassador Kennedy had working with England, Scotland and Wales, was as the importer of copious amounts of whiskey and gin.
READ: This Election Actually Showed Americans Still Love Their Public Schools
Whether or not it’s to DJT’s credit, McMahon’s tenure with the Small Business Administration (SBA) during his first administration turned out much better than Kennedy’s ambassadorship.
While liaising with the UK government, Old Man Kennedy watched as Europe plunged into war. Because of his isolationist response, Kennedy’s tenure will live in history as one of the most controversial. Because the ambassador worked diligently to keep the US out of World War II – many historians have since credited him with the prolonged and disastrous outcomes caused by Hitler steamrolling Europe.
Recent memory has been quite the opposite for McMahon. In 2017 she handily won congressional approval for her nomination to lead the SBA. And even though Connecticut’s two U.S. Senators, Blumenthal and Murphy, both ran against and defeated McMahon earlier in the decade, they praised her stewardship of the agency.
McMahon left her post at the White House in 2019, to run a super PAC, the America First Institute, an apparently partisan 501(c)4 that funneled tens of millions of dollars into Republican campaigns and less than $40,000 to democrats.
And now, McMahon hopes to administer the nation’s education system. And while the Department of Education’s budget is a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly $2 trillion U.S. taxpayers spend on the military, it appears the agency’s been slated for dismantling. In wrestling terms, McMahon’s been tapped to take the fall.
That’s quite a pity, considering some of the good work McMahon accomplished at SBA. For instance, during Hurricane Harvey, McMahon oversaw $509 million in federal disaster loans for Texas residents alone, and hired thousands of additional federal workers to get aid swiftly and efficiently into the hands of the victims. Imagine if someone with that mindset hired additional teachers to augment our schools and – well – teach!
Oh sure, on the brighter side, there’s talk that dismantling the Department of Education would make it nearly impossible to do what the America First PAC wants done – the privatization of the entire education system from the top down – it’s hard to say if McMahon could pull it off.
Congress created the agency, and Congress is the final referee on the match. As long as the Senate has a filibuster and the Democrats aren’t afraid to use it, the bout is weighted on the side of the agency. So, like a room full of middle-school boys gathering around a television and a pizza to watch Monday Night Raw, the incoming nomination hearings are getting ready to rummmmble.
