Meet the Civics Education Coalition, a group put together by the federal Department of Education and Secretary Linda McMahon, who firmly believes that education should be sent back to the states, where the federal government will do all in its power to make sure the states do what the feds want them to do.
Past the imperative banner of "Know America. Love America," the America 250 Civics Education Coalition is a collection of all the top names in right wing anti-public education advocacy. The forty groups include America First Policy Institute (founded by Brooke Rollins and Larry Kudlow with McMahon as their founding chair), Turning Point USA (Saint Charlie), Hillsdale College, Alliance Defending Freedom (conservative christianist legal shop), Center for Education Reform, Goldwater Institute, Heritage Foundation, Leadership Institute, Moms for Liberty, Moms for America, and PragerU. Somehow Bety DeVos's American Federation for Children is not here, but the shadowy secret Council for National Policy is.
Leadership includes co-chairs Erika Donalds and Ben Judge and some other MAGA worthies. I could dig into all that, but to really get a feel for where we're headed here with a video that went up just two days ago and packs a whole lot into just 1:35.
A lighthouse with an American flag flying nearby on a rocky island, with dark storm clouds and lightning flashes in the distance.
"American education was once a shining light guiding generations."
As the stern-yet-concerned male voice delivers that line, we flash between the lighthouse and images of
1) black and white picture of students in a classroom, a couple of hands raised
2) another classroom, this one in color but still clearly 1950ish with students standing, hands on heart, mouths open as they salute the prominently featured US flag
3) a fairly simple drawing of a cross on a hill
4) flag flying (in black and white)
5) students standing hands on hearts outside, another black and white image
"Built on faith, heritage, patriotism."
1) Students in a classroom, eyes closed, hands folded in prayer. Teacher stands nearby head bowed.
2) Black and white photo of some inscription; the visible words are "After God had carried/ and ?ee had by/ provided necessaries"
3) The cover of some edition of Who's Who In Ameria
4) A flag, followed by students standing and pledging
5) Fuzzy image of two young men dressed up on what might be some kind of campus but could just be a big lawn. This might be the most mysterious image so far, unless I'm supposed to recognize these guys.
6) Image dissolves with a hint of flame. Oh no! Danger!
We are twelve seconds in. We have seen an assortment of old-timey school images featuring a bunch of white students. Religious imagery is featured, but only images of a certain type of religion.
This is the worst kind of ahistoric nostalgia. What exactly do these folks miss about the fifties and early sixties? Could it be the widespread racial segregation of schools? Or was our education a shining beacon in 1965 when only 49% of people 25 and over had graduated from high school (today it's 91%)? Maybe they're thinking fondly of the days when the top marginal tax rate was 94%. Maybe they are waxing nostalgia about 1957 and Sputnik, which so awakened the US to the declining quality of our education system that an entire National Defense Education Act was passed to invest tons of resources in schools.
Now the music and narrator tune grow darker, because we must talk about what ended those golden shining days.
"But over the past 60 to 70 years, that brilliance has been dimmed. A great institution has been crumbled from within."
1) A partially folded flag on a shelf in an empty classroom
2) Helmeted police confront protestors. Oddly, they choose the split second when a cop pushes a protestor.
3) On a street, a vehicle is on its side
4) American flag hung upside down. Some young men stand nearby.
5) Black woman with an afro at a microphone. Neither Google nor I recognize her, but she's the first Black person to show up in this video.
6) Woman taking a drag on what is probably one of those evil maryjeewanna cigarettes
7) The light in the lighthouse goes out.
8) Someone sits alone on big wide steps. We are then inside a structure as stones collapse and fall apart.
"Overtaken by those who teach hatred for America, false revisionist history, and division."
1) Bill Ayers (not identified0 on BookTV
2) Smoke pours out of building
3) Some headlines about Kathy Boudin, the Weather Underground member who was later hired by Columbia University as an adjunct prof. The most prominent headline is "Clueless at Columbia: Turning Terrorists Into Profs" from the New York Post. Nothing about turning insurrectionists into high government officials.
4) Very quick flash of burning flag
5) TV report of Columbus State Community College removing statue of Columbus.
6) At the moment that "revisionist history" is spoke, a 1619 project image.
7) Hat that says "America was never great."
Now cue a Barrack Obama quote over "Georgetown University hid religious symbols at White House request." Obama says "from fundamentally transforming the United States of America," while we see in quick succession
1) Critical Race Theory
2) Satanic Temple After School Satan Club
3) A phone video shot from back in a classroom and there is something on a screen that just looks like some big colored stripes. I'm not sure what is supposed to be awful about this. Watching art in class?
4) Someone holding up cover of Gender Queer
5) Kids lined up at door to something, with someone dressed like a clown at the door? I see some rainbowish colors so maybe these are supposed to be evil gay clowns?
6) Some drag queen story hour
Notice that none of these items are about the actual quality of education, but about complying with the preferred cultural norms of the right.
Screen goes to black. We are thirty seconds in.
Someone in silhouette comes through a door, American flag and lightning behind her. It's Linda McMahon, but we aren't ready to reveal that yet.
"Now, on the 250th anniversary of our nation, the Department of Education, the America 250 Civics Education Coalition, and partners across America are reigniting that light, restoring understanding, and returning education to the states where it belongs."
Now the cuts come more slowly and less hectic, the music more heroic and punctuated with Terminator 2 style percussion. The narrator's voice is steeled with determination.
The still-unrevealed McMahon starts up the steps. Figures on a stand in front of a huge screen with 250 on it. A classroom bathed in light. Another where the lights are coming on. A flag sticker on a window. Government buildings in DC with audible helicopter, because this is an action movie (not showing how empty they are after being DOGEd, because now that MAGA are installed, government is heroic again). Teacher stands in front of class, hand on heart (chalkboard behind her says "renewable resources" so that might have been a mistake). Quick cuts of classrooms of students in classrooms, then, on a classroom door window, the America 250-- Know America. Love America. logo. School. Building flying flag. Open book with some Revolutionary War picture. Kids standing with hands on hearts doing pledge. Hand drawn picture of flag. Workmen repairing Statue of Liberty's crown. And a hand in a work glove is cleaning off a giant lens. Child looks out car window, wind in hair. Classroom with actual student of color-- the first we've seen. Some more hopeful children, including one in cowboy hat. Polishing flagpole. Flag. Kid coming home. Another child of color. Classroom with the word "excellence" on a poster. Drone shot of playground.
Light coming on in lighthouse. We're at 58 seconds.
"For this was once the shining light that inspired the world. And under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary McMahon (WWF announcer shouting "that's Linda McMahon") that light will be restored to guide our students and our nation into a brighter American future."
Recap of old timey students, the "Liberty" over the Statue of Liberty." Trump with a Presidential edict. Shot of Trump and McMahon. And now we see that it is McMahon who climbed up there and fixed the lighthouse light. Yay! It lights up again as the WWF announcer cheers. Some small children. Trump signing something. McMahon and the light again. Light beaming into classroom. Small child raising her fist in front of the Statue of Liberty, which is certainly an interesting reinterpretation of the statue's pose. A light on the flag on a person's garage. Trump in front of some people in caps and gowns. A kids book-- "We the People." Student in classroom looks up. Spotlight on flag in front of building. Close-up of small hand on heart (a child's, not Trump's).
And, just because, a shot of a map marked with the Gulf of America.
Graduate. Flag patch on sleeve. Student with backpack. McMahon hugging some woman. Fighter planes over the White House. Lighthouse with clear weather. Phew. Everything is going to be okay because McMahon climbed up there and polished some glass.
Trump's voice "Nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans. The future is ours."
American flag sticker and America 250 sticker on classroom door as Trump speaks. Then ten seconds of the Civics Education Coalition logo.
Look, I expect a certain amount of patriotism-flavored nonsense for the 250th birthday. But this goes far beyond that.
This is nostalgic for a selectively remembered time that never was. And it's not about education. It's about fuzzy memories of a time when people knew their place and never disagreed with People In Charge. And it's about the very weakest, most fragile, most false form of patriotism.
Imagine that the person of your dreams says, "Yes, I can love you and be with you, but only if you're perfect." First, that's a heavy condition to lay on love. Second, it means that they don't really love you, but just some made up imaginary version of you.
So we get this fixation, this fragile country-love centered on the notion that history is uncomplicated, our past is without nuance or complexity, and anyone who says otherwise is Very Naughty. This approach is also deeply disrespectful of young humans, assuming that they cannot handle complex emotions or complicated stories about their country's past. Instead they must be carefully spoon fed a sanitized and imaginary version of their country's history, as if they couldn't possibly handle the notion that one can love something and still see its faults, that one cannot hold the reality of what something is in one hand and one's hopes for what that thing could be in the other.
I presume that we can expect the Department and its forty special friends to whip up some sort of nationalistic curriculum, and that once again conservatives who think the department should be eliminated will be unable to resist the impulse to use federal power to tell state and local educators what to do (despite the illegality of that move). I suppose that you will have to wait, depending on your state, to see how forcefully your state leaders will insist that you inflict this baloney on students.
It's too bad. I love this country, and wouldn't trade it for any other. And I can love it with an ever-evolving. rich and robust understanding of what it is and what it has done. and that seems like a so much more vibrant, enduring and rich way to love something than to forced to carry around an unexamined fragile construct composed of brittle dreams and fragile imaginings. A love of country that can be examined and enriched seems so much more desirable than something you are commanded to carry that must be protected from any question or examination.
Gonna be a long year, next year.
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