Having recently returned to blogging about and analyzing the news, my last four weeks have been pretty hectic; frankly I've just been trying to keep up with what amounts to a type of fascist "shock doctrine" as the Trump regime has literally sought to overwhelm its opposition by speedrunning the installation of a fascist dictatorship. In that environment, I've been forced to place a premium on short term outcomes and the very pressing dangers to anyone who doesn't support fascism presented by the regime's activities and rhetoric.

Unfortunately, this approach has left little time for me to talk about the larger, long term ideological conditioning project being undertaken by the regime to erase history, rewrite educational curriculums, and silence sources of information critical of fascism, white nationalism, and patriarchy. Given that the study of fascist propaganda, indoctrination, and the suppression of educators and media observers under fascism is both an area of expertise for me and a foundationally important part of the Trump regime's project to create a permanent white nationalist dictatorship in America, it's probably time for me to start talking about all the ways Trump is working to make sure it'll be impossible for your kids *not* to be fascists, now.

I'd like to start with this March 25th opinion piece by James Zogby writing for Common Dreams, where the author takes a big picture view of Trump's plans to rewrite history for the purposes of fascist indoctrination:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-s-war-on-history

Trump’s War on History Is Another Slouch Toward Authoritarianism

"Buried in the flurry of President Trump’s Executive Orders is one that has been largely ignored, despite being potentially the most far-reaching of these presidential acts. Titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” this diktat lays bare Trump’s intention to roll back the gains that have been made over the last half century by historians working to present a more accurate portrait of American and world history. Trump calls these efforts “anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false,” and demands instead that schools devote themselves to “patriotic education” that will “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation”—in other words, to teach the kind of history we learned three generations ago."

Now to be clear, I do have some complaints about Zogby's tone here, because I feel like discussing the historical context of a white-centric, "patriotic" education in America while maintaining a calm, intellectually detached tone can give folks who're coming to this discussion without a good background in understanding fascist propaganda and indoctrination, the impression that the regime's assault on history and education is the kind of problem we can survive easily enough, because we survived it before the 1960's.

What I will remind those people however, and what I wish Zogby had spent a couple more paragraphs explaining, is that the vast majority of the powerful people in the American fascist movement are in fact a product of this type of white-centric, American exceptionalist education. This is precisely what folks like me, who study social hierarchies, and the history of fascism mean when we say that America has always embraced fascist ideology and participated in fascist indoctrination; Trump is not a wholly novel expression of American fascism, he's a product of historical fascist indoctrination in America and even just a return to that indoctrination is going to produce a whole generation of people who think it's totally fine and normal, to think like Trump does. That's literally the purpose of this project; the re-establishment of a white supremacist norm in education, historical study, and social discourse - forever.

There are of course knock on benefits for a permanent fascist order, including the ability to cast those teaching something besides this white-centric, American exceptionalist "patriotic" curriculum as enemies of the state and/or traitors. Furthermore, you can bet your ass that the Pork Reich isn't going to stop at rolling back social ideology and historical study to a pre-60's framework; these folks seem a lot more interested in returning to the 1850's, than the 1950's after all. But at the end of the day the Trump regime isn't counting on these changes to alter how you understand the world, our history, or enforced racial hierarchies; they're simply hoping that by silencing folks who know better, they can force indoctrinate the next generation of fascists as part of a permanent project to maintain a white nationalist dictatorship in America.

#Trump #Fascism #Education #History #Indoctrination #Zogby #WhiteSupremacy #Propaganda #WhiteNationalism #Patriarchy