“Good morning, or afternoon, or evening. Time has become both mercurial and saturnine in these, the days of the gloaming. I’m Katy Tur, and I took a pill I found in my sock drawer a couple hours ago. Might be an interesting show! Today’s guest is the Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Thank you for joining us.”
“Thank you, Katy. I’m excited to be here. And by ‘here,’ I mean in my home doing this interview over the video chat.”
“I bet. Not wearing pants, huh?”
“I have never worn pants in my life. Pants are for whores, Katy. Women wear dresses.”
“Okay. Let’s move on. The Trump Administration, and your department, is pushing hard for a full reopening of schools this fall.”
“Yes. We believe that it will be safe for our nation’s children to return to their schools in two months.”
“Why do you believe that?”
“Because we really want to. There was a meeting, and we discussed how President Trump said it was going to be just fine to have the kids in school, and so we all decided to go with that. Then we cut our fingers and swore blood oaths to never change our minds. And, uh, here I am.”
“I’m not shocked. I might have been in 2017, but not now. Will the Department of Education be issuing any guidelines about how schools can protect students and teachers?”
“I’m sure someone will whip something up. Katy, each school has its own needs and special circumstances, and should be in charge of their own response to the pandemic. If there’s one thing that vice-principals, French teachers, and marching band directors know how to do, it’s deal with a pandemic.”
“America’s teachers are hard-working, underpaid, incredible people. They are, however, in no way qualified to come up with a virus-prevention plan.”
“But they should have the freedom to do so. Freedom is so important.”
“Is it more important than the survival of our children?”
“I cannot answer that question in the universal sense, but I can say that my freedom is more important than the survival of your child. Katy, the point is that all the other countries are opening up their schools, and we’re not going to fall behind in the the Reopening Race.”
“It’s not a race.”
“We believe that there exists a Reopening Gap. We can’t allow that. We will open faster, wider, and with more gusto.”
“Secretary DeVos, other nations are able to cautiously readmit students to their schools because they’ve gotten a grip on the coronavirus. For example, Germany is beginning in-person classes, but they only had 400 new cases yesterday. We had 60,000, and you want to open the schools?”
“That’s German efficiency, Katy. We can’t compete with that.”
“Denmark had under 100 cases.”
“It’s not fair to compare the U.S. to countries that have their acts together. We’re Americans, Katy. We shoot first and ask questions later. Let’s just send the kids back to school and see what happens.”
“That is a terrible plan.”
“Also, many parents are getting sick of their children. In my role as Secretary of Education, I come into contact with a great deal of people who are poor, and cannot afford proper childcare, so they have to actually spend time with their kids. All of them are ready to strangle their children. The CDC predicts that if we don’t open the schools, up to 8 million kids might get murdered.”
“The CDC said that?”
“Champagne Dave’s Cabaret. It’s a burlesque bar my family owns. But, uh, all the dancers agree with the 8 million number. And some of those gals have graduate degrees.”
“Ma’am, how are we going to keep our teachers safe?”
“I would advise having a brother with a private army. That keeps me safe as hell.”
“Most teachers don’t have your resources. How are you going to protect them from coronavirus?”
“Protecting citizens from disease is not the responsibility of the government, Katy.”
“It totally is. It has been since the invention of government. It’s one of the primary functions of a ruling body. Maintaining the roads, policing the market, and tamping down plagues: these are the basic functions of government.”
“Uh-huh. Did you see how powerful President Trump looked in his mask?”
“Let’s just go to a commercial.”
“Of course, he’s always worn a mask.”
“Stop talking.”
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