Today at the White House Conference on American History (which is a thing, apparently) at the National Archives Museum, Trump announced an executive order to promote “patriotic education” in American schools. He has called his plan the “1776 Commission,” a play on the New York Times’ 1619 Project, the Pulitzer-Prize winning series from the New York Times which reframes American history around the date of August 1619, when the first slave ship arrived on America’s shores.
“Our youth will be taught to love American with all of their heart and all of their souls,” Trump said
— Shannon Pettypiece (@spettypi) September 17, 2020
Trump previously attacked the “1619 Project” by threatening to withhold funding from California’s schools if they use the series in their public school curriculum. As America undergoes a racial reckoning, Trump has made it quite clear where he stands. Our racist-in-chief has downplayed the threat of nazis and white supremacy, and the White House Office of Management and Budget has issued an order to stop racial sensitivity and bias training across all federal agencies.
“Today I’m also pleased to announce that I will soon sign an executive order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education. It will be called the 1776 Commission,” Trump said. “Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda — an ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together,” he continued. “The only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans. That is why it is so urgent that we finally restore patriotic education to our schools.”
Trump says it is “a form of child abuse, in the truest sense of those words,” to teach children critical race theory.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 17, 2020
Trump railed against “left-wing mobs” and “cancel culture” in a deeply fascist and jingoistic speech. Other Trump targets include famed (and deceased) historian Howard Zinn, the Smithsonian, and, as always, real facts and history. It is stunning but hardly surprising that Trump’s response to racial justice protests and a national conversation on race is to completely ignore it and try and gaslight the nation into believing racism isn’t real.
Pres Trump claims the 1619 project distorts and “rewrites” American history. He says the project wrongly says America was founded on “oppression not freedom.”
Fact: At America’s founding, kidnapped enslaved black people were exploited. The consequences of slavery continue today.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) September 17, 2020
“1619 Project” creator Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted the following:
The White House Conference on American History has not a single Black historian on it. Strange.
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) September 17, 2020
Ultimately, it is illegal for the federal government to withhold money from schools for teaching a specific curriculum. Additionally, federal law bars the Education Department from mandating curriculum, despite Education Secretary Betsy DeVos saying that the 1776 plan “sounds really wonderful.”
At the end of the day, this is Trump feeding his racist base. Many took to social media to call out the president’s pathetic pandering, which echoes the radicalization of the Hitler youth, and other fascistic propaganda initiatives:
BREAKING: That’s Hitler Youth education shit.
That’s Chinese Uigher re-education camp shit.Someone got he’s feelings hurt that schools actually started teaching facts that don’t whitewash racism and inequality out of the story. Might as well name it Trump Youth. https://t.co/WcNktJRQHW
— Chris ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽 // 🏳️🌈🏳️🌈🏳️🌈 (@SpaceMufasa) September 17, 2020
Trump just announced he will soon be signing an executive order establishing a “national commission to promote patriotic education” called the “1776 Commission.”
It is unclear what that means but he has been trashing the 1619 project which aims to educate the nation with facts.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) September 17, 2020
Massive congrats to Donald Trump for educating millions of Americans about critical race theory and the 1619 Project. pic.twitter.com/BtwL85Tanh
— Anand Giridharadas (@AnandWrites) September 17, 2020
The most insidious form of political correctness in this country is the way we’ve sanitized history to make the US always the hero, never the villain.
It’s laughably false, but as the reaction to the 1619 project shows, it’s core to conservative identity.
— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) September 17, 2020
I’m trying to think of another work of public history/journalism that has been as deeply impactful as the 1619 Project. It’s an astonishing achievement. https://t.co/BdxQEqr19P
— Mike Duncan (@mikeduncan) September 17, 2020
The president is a fascist, a racist, a white supremacist and is engaging in outright propaganda.
This is not patriotism. This is nationalism. https://t.co/fgKqWO71w6
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 17, 2020
Thank you, President Trump.
Because of your speech today, more people will read Howard Zinn and @nhannahjones‘ 1619 Project. More people will realize that the founding fathers in 1776 were all white men who didn’t let women vote or consider black people full human beings.
— Wajahat “Wears a Mask Because of a Pandemic” Ali (@WajahatAli) September 17, 2020
Tapping out. This “conference” has nothing to do with history. It’s just a series of vague and evidence-free complaints rooted in caricatures of professors, academia, and the classroom. https://t.co/q5X9acKMVn
— Joshua D. Rothman (@rothmanistan) September 17, 2020
Today I am pleased to announce an executive order to distract from 200,000 dead Americans and the ongoing economic crisis, part of a series of divisive press hits to fire up my base with racial grievance and get people talking about anything other than what matters most. https://t.co/dW0z6jFZhJ
— Jon Lovett (@jonlovett) September 17, 2020
Because sometimes I want to test the limits of my patience, I am watching the WH Conference on American history.
I am assuming they have Ben Carson on the panel because they couldn’t find another Black historian.
— Val Brown (@ValeriaBrownEdu) September 17, 2020
the white house has some kind of panel on american history and i guess they needed some diversity so they called in ben carson, who at this point is like the trump admin designated hitter on race stuff pic.twitter.com/fmZgsc21qb
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) September 17, 2020
Self-described “radical leftist historian” here. (Halloween season, the scariest thing to be)
I didn’t learn any “subversive history” from Zinn. I learned a “fuller” history by having a family who valued learning + pushed me into libraries to understand more about Black history.
— DJ Polite (@Polite_DPJ) September 17, 2020
(via Politico, featured image: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Image)
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