When first-term President Donald Trump named Betsy DeVos to lead the Department of Education, People For the American Way called it a “new high-water mark in the right wing’s long war on public education.” Trump may have obliterated that mark with his nomination of MAGA billionaire Linda McMahon to oversee his promised dismantling of the Department of Education. “I want Linda to put herself out of a job,” Trump said last week.
Given McMahon’s support for further privatization of public education, it is not surprising that DeVos cheered her nomination. McMahon’s confirmation is being backed by leaders from the far-right Claremont Institute, Family Research Council, American Principles Project, Moms for Liberty, and Eagle Forum.
Unqualified
Like many of Trump’s cabinet nominees, Linda McMahon brings little relevant expertise to the table beyond a year on the Connecticut state board of education; her primary qualification seems to be unwavering loyalty and massive financial support to Trump and his MAGA movement. McMahon and her husband Vince McMahon made their fortune by building the professional wrestling operation now known as WWE. She spent more than $10 million helping to put Trump back in power and served as co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team.
The America First Policy Institute: MAGA Radicalism and Christian Nationalism
In addition to running and funding pro-Trump political committees, McMahon has been serving as chair of the America First Policy Institute, a think tank and administration-in-exile started and filled by a group of former Trump staffers after he lost the 2020 election and failed in his illegal effort to stay in power.
As Right Wing Watch has reported, AFPI is a promoter of MAGA policies and Christian nationalist rhetoric; its political arm, chaired by far-right billionaire bully Tim Dunn, partnered with dominionist Christian activists to elect Trump. Like the better-known Project 2025, AFPI’s plans for the new administration included a policy agenda and hundreds of draft Executive Orders designed to allow Trump to carry out “revolutionary” plans to “seize control of the administrative state and use it—while also dismantling it.”
As Right Wing Watch noted, “The group’s agenda for the incoming administration—its ‘transition project’—is in some ways even more radical than the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. AFPI believes Trump should be allowed to fire and replace any federal employee at will – potentially converting the entire federal workforce into a massive and corrupt political patronage system.”
Undermining Public Schools, Funding Unaccountable Private Schools
AFPI amplifies far-right claims about public schools that are meant to undermine support for public education. For example, AFPI claims, “The current crisis in public education stems not only from the fact that children are no longer being taught the fundamental subjects and skills necessary to flourish as adults but that they are also being indoctrinated to accept a worldview that is anti-Western, anti-Christian, and, increasingly, anti-reality.” AFPI also trashes teachers unions.
AFPI has bragged about promoting so-called school choice laws that use vouchers and other tools to divert funding from public schools to private schools that frequently do not face any of the same legal requirements for accessibility or accountability. AFPI has specifically taken credit for lobbying for the expansion of this approach in Arizona—over the objection of voters—where it has become an expensive “handout to the wealthy” that has forced cuts in programs that serve needier families. Pro Publica has reported on the lack of accountability in the program; a failing charter school shut down by regulators simply reopened as a private religious school funded by taxpayers.
An analysis of AFPI’s education policy agenda in The Nation concluded:
This agenda does more than harness the long-standing animus to government-backed education on the right—it advances the creation of a parallel education system for right-wing partisans. In this regard, as well as in its aggressive model of privatized education funding, the AFPI plan recalls the original role that neoliberal economics played in supporting the new ad hoc network of “segregation academies” launched in the American South after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling to desegregate the nation’s schools. The same basic dictum holds for today’s American right as it did then: If you can’t segregate with law, segregate with economics….The Georgia chapter has focused on school choice by advocating for a school voucher bill that caters only to the wealthiest Georgians.
It’s important to note that while massively funded right-wing political operations have succeeded in advancing privatization through GOP-led legislatures, voters have consistently rejected voucher programs whenever they get the chance, most recently last November in Kentucky, Nebraska, and Colorado.
MAGA Doublespeak on Indoctrination and Local Control
Like other MAGA groups, AFPI claims to oppose “indoctrination” in public schools but works to promote right-wing indoctrination. AFPI describes its education policy as part of a strategy for “restoring a nation under God.” AFPI argues, “We need honest teaching of America’s history in our schools, not a political agenda,” all while promoting indoctrination through materials like Hillsdale College’s 1776 curriculum.
The same double-speak applies to AFPI’s claims that it wants policies that leave control over education in state and local hands. “We will send Education BACK TO THE STATES, and Linda will spearhead that effort,” Trump declared. Meanwhile, Trump’s recent executive orders assert control over what can be taught in classrooms and criminalize school policies meant to expand educational opportunity. One order calls for eliminating any funding for schools that promote “gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology.”
AFPI has also provided cover for Trump’s aggressive attacks on the rights of transgender people, denouncing “radical gender ideology,” opposing efforts to accommodate trans students, and seeking to ban gender affirming health care for young people.
A Culture of ‘Exploitation, Misogyny, and Cruelty’
Many advocates for public education are unimpressed with McMahon’s supposed credential as a successful businesswoman who helped run a large company. “Under Linda McMahon, the WWE normalized bullying, degraded women, and prioritized profit over people,” writes Rob Rogers, a board member for Advocates for Public Education Policy and self-described pro wrestling fan. “While Linda might want the public to view her as a no-nonsense executive who built a billion-dollar company, wrestling fans know the truth. The company she helped lead thrived on a culture of exploitation, misogyny, and cruelty.”
Education scholar Daniel Collier has written that under McMahon’s leadership, WWE “aggressively opposed unionization” and “controlled wrestlers’ behavior and limited their ability to earn outside income despite classifying them as independent contractors (which also restricted their access to benefits).”
McMahon is facing a lawsuit charging that when she was running the WWE, she failed to take action against a WWE employee who sexually abused “ring boys”; she and her husband deny the allegations. The lawsuit is on hold while a dispute over a question of state law is litigated.
“If Linda McMahon failed to create a safe and respectful culture in her company, how can we trust her to advocate for students, teachers, and schools?” Rogers asks.
Join the Opposition
Groups like Network for Public Education Action are opposing McMahon’s confirmation. You can sign People For the American Way’s petition here.