1776 Commission Members Appointed (And It's About What You'd Expect)

You remember just six 2020 weeks ago (that's roughly a year and a half in regular time), Dear Leader proclaimed that the 1776 Commission would be formed in order to create a more perfect set of teaching stuff that would teach our young people to think about our country in the Correct Way. The proclamation announcing this was a piece of work, among other things laying out how we should teach students to have the Proper View of our country (we were bad about Black people for a while, but now that's all fixed) and wipe out that 1619 Project stuff. It was not exactly lined up with the goal of teaching critical thinking, but, hey, Patriotism.

Now Dear Leader has appointed his crew, and it has gone about as one would expect. You can check out the official list here, but here's a rundown of who some of these folks are.

Larry Arn will be the chair. Arn is the president of hyper-conservative ultra-Christianist Euro-centric Hillsdale College (Betsy DeVos was just there to deliver a Jeremiad).

Members include Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, the campus right-wing group, and recent receiver of hard talk from Geraldo Rivera (Trump lost. Knock it off.). Because a history commission needs people who can't even come to grips with the history of the several weeks.

Brooke Rollins, the Trump domestic policy advisor since May.\

We've got Carol Swain, a retired poli sci professor that Trump probably saw talking on the TV, or maybe on Twitter passing along already-debunked election conspiracy baloney. And she's Black, so for Trump's purposes that's a bonus.

Vincent Haley, another member of the Trump administration (speechwriting, etc). Formerly employed by folks like Gingrich Productions and Trump for America, Inc.

Victor Davis Hanson, a pundit and Hoover Institution senior fellow who was on the TV explaining that Black Lives Matter is trying to "hijack" American history.

Phil Bryant, Governor of Mississippi and Trump lover. Briefly a sheriff before becoming a career politician.

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, whose listed areas of expertise are conservatism, Europe and global politics. Not U.S. history.

John Gibbs, a conservative commentator who has held a variety of jobs in the Trump administration. He started out as a software engineer. His Wikipedia entry says, so far, that he has a "history of making inflammatory remarks and spreading false conspiracy theories on his Twitter feed." That would include the claim that Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign took part in a Satanic ritual.

Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. He's a regular on the Fox business channel, and he held a Trump fundraiser for the election that Trump just lost. He did once found a company (Curriki) that did education stuff, so there's that.

Gay Hart Gaines, a GOP fund raiser from Palm Beach. He once received a lifetime award for that, awarded by Laura Ingraham at a dinner at Mar-A-Lago.

Ned Ryun, founder of American Majority, an outfit that locates, recruits and trains conservatives to run for local offices. He has a whole podcast series about the History of the Constitutional Convention.

Peter Kirsanow is a lawyer from Cleveland and is a member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, serving his fourth six-year term (originally appointed by George W. Bush).

Charles R. Kesler is a professor at Claremont McKenna College. He appears to have written many real articles and at least one book about the founding of America.

Dr. Thomas K. Lindsay--who is not a medical doctor but is still listed with "Dr" attached--works at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-tilted thinky tank. An academic (even though he calls himself a doctor), he research has focused on democracy and education.

Jerry C. Davis is president of the very Christianist College of the Ozarks (in Missouri) and his heart is heavy about racial injustice.

Michael Farris, a lawyer and founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, and also worked on the Convention of States Project. Citizens for Self-Governance is also one of his projects.

And Bob McEwen, who was a GOP pol in Ohio back in the day, but nowadays is a lobbyist and talking head, primarily at Advantage Assoc International. He was a vocal supporter of Trump during impeachment proceedings.

So what we have is a couple of people who might actually know something about early U.S. history (albeit viewed through a conservative lens, or even a heavily smudged conservative lens) and a bunch of Trumpers, fundraisers, and folks who have no apparent excuse for being on this commission. And almost nobody who knows anything at all about education--well, actually nobody at all when it comes to the K-12 students who are the target of this baloney. 

What a bizarre little thing to try to pull off in the final moments of a lame duck Presidency (and on a Friday afternoon before a holiday week), as if there aren't a few other things that require federal attention at the moment. Here's hoping that the commission doesn't even manage one meeting before vanishing into the ether, like the silly piece of vaporware it is.