On Jan. 13-14, AFT leaders from across the country gathered in Washington, D.C., for “What’s Coming at Us and What We Are Going to Do About It: Special Meeting About the Path Forward.”
“I’m glad you’re all here [for] the last week of semi-normalcy,” deadpanned AFT President Randi Weingarten on Jan. 13 prior to her fireside chat with AFT Pennsylvania President Arthur Steinberg and HPAE President Debbie White.
Early on in the conversation, Weingarten noted that the most important reason why Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election “was that about 20 million people who voted last, in 2020, didn’t vote — and most of them were people who voted for [Joe] Biden and they just decided there was not enough to vote [in 2024].” She proceeded to cite what she called “the four I’s” that were key themes in the election: inflation, incumbency, immigration and identity.
Moving forward, Weingarten said, “If we can start actually shifting to a real kind of economic agenda, talk in ways that people hear we are helping them, if we can shift education talk to opportunity for all, health care for all … even more now than ever, it’s not what’s said, it’s what’s heard. And even more than ever, we have to meet people where they are — and then have a lot of presence to repeat and repeat and repeat so that they hear us and trust us.”
The two-day meeting also featured a variety of sessions, among them “What to Know About Voucher Schemes,” led by Education Law Center visiting senior fellow Josh Cowen, and “The Union’s Path to Economic Well-Being for All,” featuring HPAE’s White and others
ABOVE (left to right): AFT President Randi Weingarten, AFT Pennsylvania President Arthur Steinberg and HPAE President Debbie White on Jan. 13 at the Washington Hilton.
(Photo by Chris M. Junior)
