It’s been a few days since Melania Trump walked the red carpet with Figure 03. In all honesty, I am not sure what to think about robots replacing humans in any regard, and our Carol wrote about this last week, but Salon’s Amanda Marcotte always has to take the mean girl turn.

…So it was last week when Melania Trump walked the red-carpeted hallway, dressed all in an all-white suit — accompanied by a white humanoid robot. The image, reminiscent of a wedding, quickly went viral, driven by jokes about how the First Lady had finally met someone with her own emotional caliber and how Figure 03, as it is called, was a step up from her husband.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Mandy is calling this “The Republicans’ war on schools”. She thinks the GOP has been “leading the assault” on “lessons to more complex ideas like literary analysis, critical thinking, and higher math and sciences”. That, get this, “no one needs more than a fifth grade education”.

This is Amanda Marcotte’s opinion of Republicans and the MAGA movement in general. A bunch of knuckleheads who cannot talk about more nuanced discussions because they don’t possess an education above fifth grade. They are incapable of “critical thinking, literary analysis and math and science”. THIS is what the left thinks about anyone who votes Republican. And, oh my God. Right on cue…those fundamental Christians and their anti-LGBTQ agenda!

They have pushed ‘school choice,’ which has the end goal of funneling money out of public schools and into religious schools run by fundamentalist Christians. They have also championed homeschooling. Most recently, we saw the rise of Moms for Liberty, a group whose name hides its real aim: to redefine censorship as ‘parents’ rights’ with the goal of removing books that portray people of color, women and LGBTQ people as deserving of full rights and dignity.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Geez, Mandy. Maybe FLOTUS floated classical discussions about Plato because of this?

STRIP HER FUNDING! Trump's executive to end radical indoctrination in schools will now get Melanie rightfully fired.!!! pic.twitter.com/T3ht7O7GOW

— Sami Nathaniel (@NathanielSami) March 15, 2026

Or this?

Unbelievable‼️ Teacher in California does a Mock Election with students and will apparently reward the students who vote for Kamala and not the students who vote for Trump 🤯

This is insane!!! Listen to the end when the teacher gets called over the phone by a parent 🚨🚨👇🏼 pic.twitter.com/qJJtOtyUek

— TONY™ (@TONYxTWO) October 22, 2024

Or, even this?

The product of woke teachers spending 35 hours a week with your kids pic.twitter.com/hPFK9Sx8gR

— TONY™ (@TONYxTWO) February 1, 2026

A humanoid “educator” named “Figure 03/Plato” may be a far ways off but the fact that Marcotte is so up in arms about it is amusing, to say the least.

But while some right-wing radicals, especially in the homeschooling world, do fantasize about ending public schools altogether, there’s a begrudging acceptance in the GOP that it’s nearly impossible to work and live as an adult in a 21st-century economy without a level of knowledge and skills that only trained educators can provide. This has given rise to a persistent fantasy of finding a way to circumvent the role of the teacher and instead download literacy, math and other basic skills into students, without teaching them all the analytical skills that provoke independent thought.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

Yes, these “educators” are “trained” but I will argue that since COVID, the ProDev and the “training” looks a little different than providing the basic reading and math skills necessary to make it to fifth grade. They’ve peppered basic reading and math in with Social Emotional Learning (SEL). As a result, reading and math scores are still dismal, and school district budgets are in the toilet.

‘Social-emotional learning’ is pedagogical jargon for the school’s role in teaching kids social skills, and it’s become a demonized concept on the right. They’re not wrong that kids who learn basic lessons like ‘respect others’ at school might start extrapolating to forbidden ideas on the right, like ‘bigotry’ is ‘bad’ and ‘Donald Trump is immoral.’ But while it may have a new term, social-emotional learning has always been a vital function of education. It’s why schools have clubs, sports and school dances, instead of, well, strapping every kid to a computer that tries to download basic knowledge and skills they will need to perform job tasks, but offers them nothing about relating to others, which are often called “soft skills.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

So much to unpack here with SEL. Pedagogical jargon-BLECH! God, do I HATE that word. Social skills are NOT demonized by the right, as Mandy likes to say they are. We love kids who can engage in a conversation while looking you in the eye. We love when a child exercises good manners and knows how to talk on a phone without putting it on a speaker. Donald Trump may be immoral in some ways but so are elements of the LGBTQ lifestyle. So was Kamala Harris when she slept with a married man to advance her career. And, excuse me, clubs, sports and school dances? You guys SHUT THAT DOWN in 2020 for public school kids and FORCED them to be strapped to a computer and their phones, where YOUR party and the teachers’ unions alike, REFUSED to go back into the classroom while revamping the educational system as we know it. This is on the Democrats. This is where the SEL pedagogy (I gag every time I hear or have to say this word) came from. And this is where we are-with children who are confused as heck, unmotivated and scared of their own shadows. YOU ALL DID THIS.

Kids are entitled to a well-rounded education that teaches them to be better people, not just parrot information. Knowledge without thinking has long been a right-wing dream, but it’s incompatible with how human brains actually work. We need each other to give information context and meaning — to have teachers. AI is a shiny new toy, but it can’t dislodge this basic reality of human psychology.”-Amanda Marcotte, Salon

How is teaching kids to go out and fight with police officers “teaching them to be better people”? How are teachers going hysterical over a kid in a Trump hat “teaching kids to be better people”?

How are teachers smiling favorably about and mocking a father of two kids getting shot in the neck “teaching kids to be better people”? We’ve gone from Kindergarten teachers being unable to hug a student (side hugs okay) but the guest Drag Queen could plop Little Johnny on his lap for story hour? We have the advocates for “science” arguing that there are more than two genders and shutting down any “critical thinking” or arguments to the contrary. They’re just parroting information, something Mandy doesn’t think kids should be doing.

Mandy, we’re NOT afraid of parroting teachers. We’re afraid for our children because some of them are not turning out to be functioning human beings. Our educational system is churning out robots. A walk along any university campus will cement this idea.

I think we’re a long way off from Figure 03/Plato-watever its name is. At least, I hope so because I do believe children need human interaction and there are good teachers out there who actually still WANT to TEACH. But, the next time teachers’ unions want to whine about how they are underpaid, want summers their off and schools districts are in budget deficits, maybe it’s time to bust out the robot again. One would think they would be in favor of this genderless thing standing in front of our precious youth.

Feature Image: Yahoo News via X (@YahooNews)