Meidas Health: Dr. Gupta’s Deep Dive with AFT President Randi Weingarten
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Midas Mighty, welcome to another episode of Midas Health. Really excited to have our next guest, Randy Weingarten, join us. Randy, I've gotten to know Randy over the course of the last several years, especially during COVID and ever since. And she needs no introduction. She's one of the nation's leading public sector officials. I mean, she leads one of the most influential, if not the most influential labor union in the country. It touches public school teachers. They represent doctors and nurses across the spectrum. It doesn't get more influential than Mandy Weingarten. And she's going to be talking to us about her new book. why fascists fear teachers. So her perspective's there. And there's broadly so much happening right now in healthcare, healthcare policy, to get her take.
Again, she represents the interests of nurses and doctors across the country. So there's no better voice. But without further ado, I'm going to bring Randi on to stage. Randi, thanks so much for joining Minus Health.
I am so glad to be with you. Thank you, Vin. And I am so, again, I'm so sorry about the passing of your mom.
Well, you know, for our listeners, my beloved mom passed away unexpectedly a few weeks ago, and she was a neonatologist. And there's so much I want to say, and one day I will say, but one thing she did tell my brother and I was, I mentioned this to Randy, is that if anything happened to her, she said to continue with your work after taking a week off, which is why I'm here with Randy. Randy, there's so much that you and I, I know we talk about a lot, but for the Midas Touch audience, I want to first talk about your book and why fascists fear teachers. Why did you write it?
And I don't even have a copy with me. I normally use it, lift it up, have a copy of it. I'll see if I can get it before the end of this session. I wrote it for two reasons. I wrote it as a warning. I think that in the last several weeks, as we've seen the Trump administration disappear people, this last couple of days, there was a teacher in Chicago who who was just taken by ICE, but the disappearing of people by these mass men, this indictment of enemies, the militarization of streets, all of this... is what happens in countries that are not democratic. Millions of people on the street basically protesting and saying, no kings, Prop 50 just passing in California. I mean, so I wrote it when I wrote it a year ago.
I was warning about the backsliding of democracy and issues around or descriptions of fascistic behavior. I had hoped we would never get to this point, but that was number one. And I watched in the election leading up to November 2024, You know, when people like General Milley and General Kelly attempted to warn the country about what happens when there's democratic backsliding, what happens in governments that are fascistic or authoritarian or, you know, believe in the rule of one, not the rule of law, what happens in terms of the erosion of freedom... I didn't actually, I had hoped we'd never get to, you know, a point that is so scary as to right now. So that was number one. Number two, I wrote, because you know me, you know me quite well, Vin, which is for every problem, we have to be out there with a solution.
Part of what happens in terms of fascistic behavior is they exacerbate the governments that believe in that, authoritarians, the rule of one. They exacerbate fear. They exacerbate problems. They don't solve problems. And what is clear to me from my life in education is that educators... and frankly, I would argue a labor movement, they are part of the solutions to helping people have a better life. And if we look at really truly what's going on in the country, and you could see it from the election, People want a better life. They want their government not to be retaliatory, not to take away their freedoms, not to be autocratic. They want their government to solve problems like the cost of groceries, like the cost of housing, so that people can get ahead, so that our next generation can do better than our generation.
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