Donald Trump and his administration are tapping a bevy of far-right organizations notorious for whitewashing American history to help plan next year’s celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday.
On Wednesday, an announcement from the Education Department listed several ultraconservative organizations known for promoting racist and xenophobic narratives about America’s past — and demonizing anyone who doesn’t — as partners for an initiative ostensibly focused on “civics.” The 40-plus groups will partner with the America First Policy Institute, formerly led by Education Secretary Linda McMahon, to “spearhead nationwide initiatives to engage students, educators, and communities in conversations about liberty, citizenship, and America’s enduring values.”
The list includes organizations such as PragerU, the right-wing content mill that has produced material for children downplaying racist atrocities like chattel slavery and the genocide of Native Americans, and whose founder has openly said that his intent is to “indoctrinate” children. Also on the list is The Heritage Foundation, the group whose authoritarian agenda — Project 2025 — is being effectuated throughout the Trump administration. Moms for Liberty, which has sought to whitewash school curricula and fueled a push to ban library books that conservatives don’t like, is also on the list. As is Turning Point USA, the organization co-founded by Charlie Kirk.
A quote in the Education Department’s press release, attributed to a top official of Turning Point Education, said that TPUSA is “more resolved than ever to advance God-centered, virtuous education.” Trump and his movement have openly promoted ending the constitutional separation between church and state — and pushed for Christian nationalists to wield more control over U.S. politics.
Needless to say, it doesn’t make much logical or ethical sense to have such organizations, whose principles and practices seem so antagonistic to the concept of multiracial democracy, leading lessons on the rights and freedoms that Americans are to be afforded. Nor does it make sense for groups with track records of hiding American history to oversee the teaching of American history. But as The New York Times noted Thursday, Trump has expressed a perverse and overtly partisan view on civics: In 2022, when he announced his 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump vowed to strip federal funding from schools that promoted what he called “radical civics.” In another campaign speech, he criticized a bipartisan proposal to expand civics education in America. “They call it civics education, which is nothing more than a fake name for radical-left indoctrination,” Mr. Trump said. As president, he has repeatedly signaled his interest in boosting civics in America as a way to promote more “patriotic education” across the country. He has said his administration will strip funding from schools that stray from those themes. This array of far-right organizations seems carefully chosen to advance Trump’s priorities of whitewashing American history and using warped, exclusionary depictions of it to aid his political movement.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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