Trump’s War on History Is Another Slouch Toward Authoritarianism
One of the hallmarks of fascist rule is the indoctrination of the public to believe in the “glorification of the nation.”
Significant attention and concern have been generated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s early Executive Orders and actions. There has been extensive coverage of the president’s: empowering of Elon Musk’s orders to gut the federal workforce; shuttering USAID; plans to deport massive numbers of migrants and refugees, including those seeking asylum; on-again, off-again imposition of tariffs; flaunting the will of Congress by withholding appropriated funding; banning “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs; restrictions on treatment of transgender young people; and defying court-ordered injunctions by claiming that the powers of the presidency can’t be restrained by the judiciary.
Buried in the flurry of President Trump’s Executive Orders is one that has been largely ignored, despite being potentially the most far-reaching of these presidential acts. Titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” this diktat lays bare Trump’s intention to roll back the gains that have been made over the last half century by historians working to present a more accurate portrait of American and world history. Trump calls these efforts “anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false,” and demands instead that schools devote themselves to “patriotic education” that will “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation”—in other words, to teach the kind of history we learned three generations ago.
As late as the early 1960s when American schools taught “World History,” it was Eurocentric. It started with Stone Age man (in Europe), then passed onto the Greek and Roman Empires, the Holy Roman Empire, the “Dark Ages,” the emergence of the nation states of Europe, the discovery of the New World, the birth pangs that accompanied the first centuries of the United States (i.e., “fighting Indians” and a civil war over “states’ rights”), the Industrial Revolution, the two World Wars that sandwiched the Great Depression, and the challenges posed by the Soviet Union and the Cold War.
The celebrated American author Sinclair Lewis once predicted that “fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross.” With these cautionary words in mind, attention must be paid to President Trump’s Executive Order.
In this narrative, the U.S. was depicted as the fulfillment of history, the conveyor of the values of freedom and democracy, and, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was fond of saying, “the indispensable nation.”
There was no mention of African history or Islamic civilization. There were just four paragraphs devoted to China, which we were told was “opened up to the West” by Marco Polo. And the only mention of Arabs was in a short section on the ways nomadic peoples were forced to adapt to living under harsh conditions, including a few paragraphs each on the Arab bedouin of the desert and the Laplanders of the frozen tundra of Northern Europe.
American history was distorted and romanticized. Slavery was given short shrift as was the genocide and land theft committed against the Indigenous peoples of North America. This is what we were taught.
Things changed in the 1960s as a result of the cultural revolution in America that was prompted by the civil rights and then anti-Vietnam War movements. In their wake, there was the blossoming of other social and political movements, including women’s liberation and concern for the environment. The expanding consciousness inspired by this period of challenge and change led to a reexamination of American history and our place in the world. And with this came a focus on Black history, Native American history, women’s history, and an expansion of the writing and teaching of world history to include the perspectives and stories of peoples who had previously been ignored. This was not an effort to create multiple separate histories, but to ensure that future generations would benefit from learning a more complete and integrated human history.
Of course, there was pushback by conservatives who wanted to restore the mythologies of the past. It will be recalled that President Trump fired his opening salvo in this war on history during his first term when he denounced The New York Times’ stunning “1619 Project.” That massive undertaking put in focus the role of the conquering European settlers in America as they committed crimes of genocide against the Indigenous peoples they encountered and then introduced the massive and enormously destructive enterprise of slavery in the New World and its enduring legacy. Trump countered this effort with his “1776 Project” that sought to do nothing more than to restate the myth of America, shorn of its dark underside.
Trump’s new Executive Order is the latest iteration of this war on history. After decrying the “radical, anti-Americanism” that he claims teaches that the United States is “fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory,” he calls for “an accurate, honest, unifying, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding” and “a celebration of America’s greatness and history.”
Trump goes further by calling for “Reestablishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission and Promoting Patriotic Education” that will be charged with sponsoring programs to encourage patriotic learning and glorification of America’s battles and war heroes. The order further requires that all educational institutions receiving federal funds must hold specific patriotic educational programs, and that “relevant agencies of government” shall monitor compliance with this requirement. In other words, do what we demand or lose your funding.
None of this is benign. One of the hallmarks of fascist authoritarian rule is the indoctrination of the public to believe in the “glorification of the nation.” The celebrated American author Sinclair Lewis once predicted that “fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross.” With these cautionary words in mind, attention must be paid to President Trump’s Executive Order. It is a worrisome step down this dangerous path.
