{ "article": { "title" : "Why Fascists Fear Education", "author" : "J.P. Hill", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/the-war-on-education", "date" : "2025-03-20 23:42:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/War_Education_EIP_Cover.jpg", "excerpt" : "Donald Trump has now directed the federal government to cut funding to libraries across the country, and has signed an illegal executive order deliberately overstepping the powers of the president to begin the dismantling of the Department of Education. On March 15th the American Library Association released a statement in response to what they describe as, the “White House assault on the Institute of Museum and Library Services.” In the statement these librarians who serve all of our communities describe how Trump is trying to eliminate the entire Institute, which helps fund both libraries and museums around the country.", "content" : "Donald Trump has now directed the federal government to cut funding to libraries across the country, and has signed an illegal executive order deliberately overstepping the powers of the president to begin the dismantling of the Department of Education. On March 15th the American Library Association released a statement in response to what they describe as, the “White House assault on the Institute of Museum and Library Services.” In the statement these librarians who serve all of our communities describe how Trump is trying to eliminate the entire Institute, which helps fund both libraries and museums around the country.They write:“By eliminating the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services, the Trump administration’s executive order is cutting off at the knees the most beloved and trusted of American institutions and the staff and services they offer: Early literacy development and grade-level reading programs Summer reading programs for kids  High-speed internet access Employment assistance for job seekers  Braille and talking books for people with visual impairments Homework and research resources for students and faculty..”And more. All of this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what libraries provide, they are one of the most important and under-appreciated public goods in this country. The very idea of a library is radical and beautiful in today’s world. They’re places where we can exist, for free, where we can learn, for free, and where we can access countless resources and workshops and tools, for free. None of this should be controversial, in fact all of it should inform and be incorporated into how we structure society—but conservatives and fascists have a very different vision.This far-right vision is made even clearer by the Trump order to dismantle the Department of Education. Trump has directed the Secretary of Education to take “all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return education authority to the States.” The part about returning authority to the states is code for both axing crucial federal funding, and allowing states to further privatize education. The results will be detrimental any way you look at it. A few private charter networks and their wealthy owners will benefit, and everyone else will suffer – particularly the children of anyone who isn’t rich.There is one other, often overlooked effect of this gut punch to our public education system. Public schools are, in addition to everything else, often community hubs. They hold town halls, people can use and rent their spaces, they bring communities together for athletic events, and more. Private schools rarely serve these functions; they tend to have a more far-flung student body and aren’t rooted in the physical communities they occupy the way public schools are. So as Trump and his accomplices hurt working class kids and families everywhere by defunding education, they’re also working to take communal centers away from us by attacking libraries and schools.Rural communities will be hit especially hard, both by the attack on libraries and the gutting of public schools. In Oklahoma, DOGE’s funding will also result in fewer dollars for 16 Indigenous tribes, and for the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums. This too, is no coincidence. Cultural Heritage Centers, technological advancements, preservation initiatives, educational outreach and capacity building efforts that empower tribal institutions to serve their communities will all be affected, according to Kent Bush, public information director of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.Attacking cultural preservation, archiving, and history is an attack on Indigenous peoples as a whole. It is an attempt to erase whole nations, an attempt to purge the native people from this land to further to white supremacist project that is so central to the far-right. Deliberating funding and protecting museums and preservation initiatives is part of the fight against fascism. Maintaining and upholding histories is part of the fight against fascism and erasure.The programs and resources at risk in the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and across the country are the exact programs and resources that help empower Indigenous folks across the country, programs developed by tribes over decades. The fascist regime wants tribal communities disempowered just like they want folks to have more trouble gathering and building in cities and rural areas and at work and in all of our communities. We, of course, must resist – everywhere.Trump and Musk’s attempt to kill our spaces of gathering, our spaces of knowledge, our spaces of sanctuary where people can get a break from this world and find help and compassion is an attack on all of us. We must fight back with every tool, including the tool of building what they’re trying to tear down. That means freedom schools, people’s libraries, free education and third spaces. It means we create as we resist. It means we double down on Open Education, on mutual aid, on providing for each other, on creating the institutions and organizations we need in the ashes of the devastation. It means supporting independent media, from EIP to local journalism in your community. That is our task, no one is coming to do it for us." } , "relatedposts": [ { "title" : "Black Liberation Views on Palestine", "author" : "EIP Editors", "category" : "essays", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/black-liberation-on-palestine", "date" : "2025-10-17 09:01:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/mandela-keffiyeh.jpg", "excerpt" : "", "content" : "In understanding global politics, it is important to look at Black liberation struggles as one important source of moral perspective. So, when looking at Palestine, we look to Black leaders to see how they perceived the Palestinian struggle in relation to theirs, from the 1960’s to today.Why must we understand where the injustice lies? Because, as Desmond Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”{% for person in site.data.quotes-black-liberation-palestine %}{{ person.name }}{% for quote in person.quotes %}“{{ quote.text }}”{% if quote.source %}— {{ quote.source }}{% endif %}{% endfor %}{% endfor %}" } , { "title" : "First Anniversary Celebration of EIP", "author" : "EIP Editors", "category" : "events", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/1st-anniversary-of-eip", "date" : "2025-10-14 18:01:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/WSA_EIP_Launch_Cover.jpg", "excerpt" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent Publishing", "content" : "Celebrating One Year of Independent PublishingJoin Everything is Political on November 21st for the launch of our End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine.This members-only evening will feature a benefit dinner, cocktails, and live performances in celebration of a year of independent media, critical voices, and collective resistance.The EventNovember 21, 2025, 7-11pmLower Manhattan, New YorkLaunching our End-of-Year Special Edition MagazineSpecial appearances and performancesFood & Drink includedTickets are extremely limited, reserve yours now!Become an annual print member: get x back issues of EIP, receive the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine, and come to the Anniversary Celebration.$470Already a member? Sign in to get your special offer. Buy Ticket $150 Just $50 ! and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine Buy ticket $150 and get the End-of-Year Special Edition Magazine " } , { "title" : "Miu Miu Transforms the Apron From Trad Wife to Boss Lady: The sexiest thing in Paris was a work garment", "author" : "Khaoula Ghanem", "category" : "", "url" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/readings/miu-miu-transforms-the-apron-from-trad-wife-to-boss-lady", "date" : "2025-10-14 13:05:00 -0400", "img" : "https://everythingispolitical.com/uploads/Cover_EIP_MiuMiu_Apron.jpg", "excerpt" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.", "content" : "Miuccia Prada has a habit of taking the least “fashion” thing in the room and making it the argument. For Spring 2026 at Miu Miu, the argument is the apron; staged not as a coy retro flourish but as a total system. The show’s mise-en-scène read like a canteen or factory floor with melamine-like tables, rationalist severity, a whiff of cleaning fluid. In other words, a runway designed to force a conversation about labor before any sparkle could distract us.From the opening look—German actress Sandra Hüller in a utilitarian deep-blue apron layered over a barn jacket and neat blue shirting—the thesis was loud: the “cover” becomes the thing itself. As silhouettes marched on, aprons multiplied and mutated—industrial drill cotton with front pockets, raw canvas, taffeta and cloqué silk, lace-edged versions that flirted with lingerie, even black leather and crystal-studded incarnations that reframed function as ornament. What the apron traditionally shields (clothes, bodies, “the good dress”) was inverted; the protection became the prized surface. Prada herself spelled it out: “The apron is my favorite piece of clothing… it symbolizes women, from factories through to serving to the home.”Miu Miu Spring 2026 Ready-to-Wear. SuppliedThis inversion matters historically. The apron’s earliest fashion-adjacent life was industrial. It served as a barrier against grease, heat, stain. It was a token of paid and unpaid care. Miu Miu tapped that lineage directly (canvas, work belts, D-ring hardware), then sliced it against domestic codes (florals, ruffles, crochet), and finally pushed into nightlife with bejeweled and leather bibs. The garment’s migration across materials made its social migrations visible. It is a kitchen apron, yes, but also one for labs, hospitals, and factories; the set and styling insisted on that plurality.What makes the apron such a loaded emblem is not just what it covers, but what it reveals about who has always been working. Before industrialization formalized labor into factory shifts and wages, women were already performing invisible labour, the kind that doesn’t exist on payrolls but sits at the foundation of every functioning society. They were cooking, cleaning, raising children, nursing the ill. These tasks were foundational to every economy and yet absent from every ledger. Even when women entered the industrial workforce, from textile plants to wartime assembly lines, their domestic responsibilities did not disappear, they doubled. In that context, the apron here is a quiet manifesto for the strength that goes unrecorded, unthanked, and yet keeps civilization running.The algorithmic rise of the “tradwife,” the influencer economy that packages domesticity as soft power, is the contemporary cultural shadow here. Miu Miu’s apron refuses that rehearsal. In fact, it’s intentionally awkward—oversized, undone, worn over bikinis or with sturdy shoes—so the viewer can’t flatten it into Pinterest-ready nostalgia. Critics noted the collection as a reclamation, a rebuttal to the flattening forces of the feed: the apron as a uniform for endurance rather than submission. The show notes framed it simply as “a consideration of the work of women,” a reminder that the invisible economies of effort—paid, unpaid, emotional—still structure daily life.If that sounds unusually explicit for a luxury runway, consider the designer. Prada trained as a mime at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, earned a PhD in political science, joined the Italian Communist Party, and was active in the women’s rights movement in 1970s Milan. Those facts are not trivia; they are the grammar of her clothes. Decades of “ugly chic” were, essentially, a slow campaign against easy consumption and default beauty. In 2026, the apron becomes the newest dialect. An emblem drawn from leftist feminist history, recoded into a product that still has to sell. That tension—belief versus business—is the Miuccia paradox, and it’s precisely why these aprons read as statements, not trends.The runway narrative traced a journey from function to fetish. Early looks were squarely utilitarian—thick cottons, pocketed bibs—before migrating toward fragility and sparkle. Lace aprons laid transparently over swimmers; crystal-studded aprons slipped across cocktail territory; leather apron-dresses stiffened posture into armor. The sequencing proposed the same silhouette can encode labor, intimacy, and spectacle depending on fabrication. If most brands smuggle “workwear” in as set dressing, Miu Miu forced it onto the body as the central garment and an unmissable reminder that the feminine is often asked to be both shield and display at once.It’s instructive to read this collection against the house’s last mega-viral object: the micro-mini of Spring 2022, a pleated, raw-hem wafer that colonized timelines and magazine covers. That skirt’s thesis was exposure—hip bones and hemlines as post-lockdown spectacle, Y2K nostalgia framed as liberation-lite. The apron, ironically, covers. Where the micro-mini trafficked in the optics of freedom (and the speed of virality), the apron asks about the conditions that make freedom possible: who launders, who cooks, who cares? To move from “look at me” to “who is working here?” is a pivot from optics to ethics, without abandoning desire. (The aprons are, after all, deeply covetable.) In a platform economy that still rewards the shortest hemline with the biggest click-through, this is a sophisticated counter-program.Yet the designer is not romanticizing toil. There’s wit in the ruffles and perversity in the crystals; neither negate labor, they metabolize it. The most striking image is the apron treated as couture-adjacent. Traditionally, an apron protects the precious thing beneath; here, the apron is the precious thing. You could call that hypocrisy—luxurizing the uniform of workers. Or, strategy, insisting that the symbols of care and effort deserve visibility and investment.Of course, none of this exists in a vacuum. The “tradwife” script thrives because it is aesthetically legible and commercially scalable. It packages gender ideology as moodboard. Miu Miu counters with garments whose legibility flickers. The collection’s best looks ask viewers to reconcile tenderness with toughness, convenience with care, which is exactly the mental choreography demanded of women in every context from office to home to online.If you wanted a season-defining “It” item, you’ll still find it. The apron is poised to proliferate across fast-fashion and luxury alike. But the deeper success is structural: Miu Miu re-centered labor as an aesthetic category. That’s rarer than a viral skirt. It’s a reminder that clothes don’t merely decorate life, they describe and negotiate it. In making the apron the subject rather than the prop, Prada turned a garment of service into a platform for agency. It’s precisely the kind of cultural recursion you’d expect from a designer shaped by feminist politics, who never stopped treating fashion as an instrument of thought as much as style.The last image to hold onto is deceptively simple: a woman in an apron, neither fetishized nor infantilized, striding, hands free. Not a costume for nostalgia, not a meme for the feed, but a working uniform reframed, respected, and suddenly, undeniably beautiful. That is Miu Miu’s provocation for Spring 2026: the work behind the work, made visible at last." } ] }