Up till now, the culture panic has named its target. BLM. CRT. DEI. They picked a particular policy to attack. They mischaracterized it, but they named it and attacked it.
But with the latest White House edict for the whitewashing of history takes us one step further into Big Brother territory.
The edict is particularly focused on the Smithsonian Institution and the National Zoo (gotta watch out for those Marxist emus, but presumably the face-eating leopards are okay). The Vice President is directed "to remove improper ideology from such properties."
Improper ideology.
What does that even mean. The edict (and if Trump wrote this himself, I'm a Marxist emu) enumerates assorted offenses such as saying the nation is inherently racist and that institutional racism is a thing and all sorts of stuff coming out of that National Museum of African American History. Also, they heard the upcoming Women's History Museum might include some trans persons.
That is all lumped into that term "improper ideology." You know-- thinking and believing things that are doubleplus ungood. This on top of an ignorance of what history is and how it works. Insisting that it is not an ongoing discussion and debate about what happened and what it means, but is rather a polished hagiography of the only stories citizens should be allowed to tell about the nation, selected by a man who simultaneously calls the country a hellhole and the most perfect nation ever.
Also, the edict calls for the country to restore statues, monuments, etc that commemorate the treasonous losers of the Civil War (I'm paraphrasing a bit). Because their willingness to kill fellow citizens in order to preserve the "right" to own other human beings is important stuff. Also, there should be no statues that say anything that might "disparage" (I told you he didn't write this) any Americans, past or present (with a special mention of "persons living in colonial times").
Also, no monuments that "minimize the value of certain events or figures" and, of course, none that "include any other improper partisan ideology." Well, except their partisan ideology, but that goes without saying. It always goes without saying.
I don't know exactly why this shift in terminology has ramped up my alarm and displeasure sooo much. Lord knows they've been straddling this line for a while, but this feels like tipping fully over into the idea that The State will tell us what we are not to believe, or even mention or discuss. The nation cannot be great unless everyone in it believes the same things, and Dear Leader will tell us what those things are supposed to be. Colleges and universities will be required to teach only those things.
How does K-12 education continue under these restrictions? How much will individual teachers be willing to risk? Hell, right now we're grabbing foreign grad students off the street for writing anything the State disapproves of and cuffing foreigners at the border for having mean social media posts on their phones. If we accept the notion that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" are not rights we are born with, but rather rights that are given to us by the State, then it's a short step for the State to cancel those rights for citizens as well. And if we accept that just having an idea or expressing that idea makes you dangerous to the State, then we're in deep trouble. How do we teach students to function in that kind of society? What does education look like in a country where only certain ideas are approved and allowed by Dear Leader?
Making certain actions illegal is one thing. But making the expression of certain "improper" ideas or beliefs is quite another. Maybe the courts will stop this edict, too. That would be great and also appropriate, because Presidentially-declared thought crimes are not okayed in the Constitution.
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