In a rather scathing op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, the former Chicago mayor and former U.S. congressman rips schools for embracing far-left wokeism and for tying public education funding to student success in the classroom.
"Democrats must realize that if money alone would solve the problem, every American student would be a National Merit Scholar," he writes.
The article also addresses the hot-button topic of transgenders, a political hill Democrats have been willing to die on. Emmanuel rips his own side for fighting over pronoun usage and a male student's access to restrooms and locker rooms. "We've spent the past five years debating pronouns without noticing that too many students can't tell you what a pronoun is," he writes.
“He’s doing a slow rebranding,” P. Rae Easley, of Project 21, tells AFN. “He wants to rebrand himself as an education advocate.”
Emmanuel, 65, has stated publicly he is “looking at the field” in reference to running for president in 2028 and seeking the Democratic nomination. Staking a moderate position on education issues could be a strategic move that anticipates more radically Marxist opponents in the primary.
Out of all of that political history, Emmanuel may be best known for his candid comment in 2008 about using political power. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” he said, referring to the banking collapse and the related housing market crash. That period is now known as the “Great Recession.”
Corey DeAngelis is a senior fellow at the American Culture Project and a well-known school choice advocate. Even if Emanuel is only being politically strategic about education, he observes, the Democrat’s move to the right says a lot about public opinion.
“It’s good news in the end that you have people with aspirations for office, and even the presidency, who feel compelled to signal support for parental rights in education,” DeAngelis reasons. “That’s telling the American people parents are on the right side of history in education reform and school choice.”
Easley, a Chicago-based black conservative, is familiar with Emanuel after his two terms as mayor. She remembers him as rude, condescending and unlikeable.
“What he wants to do is make himself seem like an insider who now wants out,” she says. “We’re going to remind him we remember exactly who he is.”
Looking ahead to the 2028 Democrat primary, DeAngelis predicts Emanuel will have political trouble with the teachers’ unions if he is still sticking to the moderate stance in the Wall Street Journal op-ed.
“The problem is,” DeAngelis says, “the Democratic Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the teachers’ union."
