Trump’s edict: Education should glorify the nation

President Donald Trump’s Executive Orders and actions have generated significant attention. There’s been extensive coverage of the President’s: empowering of Elon Musk’s orders to gut the federal workforce; shuttering USAID; plans for mass deportations, including of those seeking asylum; imposition of tariffs;withholding congressionally appropriated funding; banning “diversity, equity, and inclusion”; restrictions on treatment of transgender young people; and defying court-ordered injunctions,claiming that the presidency can’t be restrained by the judiciary.  

Buried in the flurry ofTrump’s Executive Orders is perhaps the most far-reaching of these acts: “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” This diktat lays bare Trump’s intention to roll back the last half-century’s gains by historians to present a more accurate portrait of American and world history. Trump calls these efforts “anti-American, subversive, harmful and false,” and demands instead “patriotic education” to “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation”—i.e., to teach the history learned three generations ago.

As late as the early 1960s American schools taught a Eurocentric “World History.” It started with Stone Age man (in Europe), then the Greek and Roman Empires, Holy Roman Empire, “Dark Ages,” emergence of Europe’s nation-states, discovery of the New World, the first centuries of the United States (i.e., “fighting Indians” and a civil war over “states’ rights”), the Industrial Revolution, two World Wars sandwiching the Great Depression, and the challenges posed by the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

In this narrative, the US was the fulfillment of history, conveyor of values like 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. The brief content on China, related to Marco Polo “opening it up” to the West. Arabs were only mentioned in a short section on nomadic peoples’ adaptation to living under harsh conditions, along with Laplanders of Northern Europe’s tundra.

American history was distorted and romanticized. Slavery, and the genocide and land theft committed against North America’s Indigenous peoples, were given short shrift. 

As a result of the 1960s cultural revolution, prompted by the civil rights and then anti-Vietnam war movements, things changed. A blossoming of social and political movements, including women’s liberation and concern for the environment, occurred. The expanding consciousness inspired by this period led to a reexamination of American history and our place in the world, focus on Black, Native American, and women’s history, and an expansion of world history to include perspectives of peoples previously ignored. Rather than creating separate histories, the effort sought to write a more complete and integrated human history.

Of course, there was pushback by conservatives who wanted to restore the mythologies of the past. Trump’s opening salvo in this war on history during his first term was denouncing the New York Times’ “1619 Project.” That project put in focus the role of conquering European settlers in America and their crimes of genocide against the indigenous peoples they encountered and introduction of the enormously destructive enterprise of slavery in the New World and its enduring legacy. Trump countered with his “1776 Project” seeking to simply restate the myth of America, shorn of its dark underside.

Trump’s new Executive Order is the latest iteration of this war on history. 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 then calls for “Reestablishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission and Promoting Patriotic Education” to encourage patriotic learning and glorification of America’s battles and war heroes. It requires that all educational institutions receiving federal funds hold specific patriotic educational programs, and that “relevant agencies of government” shallmonitor compliance with this requirement. (Do what we demand or lose your funding.)

This is not benign. A hallmark of fascist authoritarian rule is the indoctrination of the public to believe in the “glorification of the nation.” The celebrated American author Sinclair Lewis predicted that “fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross.” Attention must be paid to President Trump’s Executive Order—a worrisome step down this dangerous path.

The author is a president Arab American Institute