Anne Lutz Fernandez points out that the far right doesn’t actually mind indoctrination after all– as long as it’s the correct indoctrination.
An ambitious project began with a moral panic, stoked early in the pandemic, about alleged indoctrination of the nation’s schoolchildren. A “woke” army of radical leftist teachers was allegedly indoctrinating America’s youth.
The well-funded astroturf push demonized educators and created hysteria about Critical Race Theory before expanding to other bogeymen. It has been shockingly successful at producing educator intimidation, book bans, and K-12 censorship.
Though ongoing, the panic can now be filed under the label, Every Accusation is a Confession — because the project’s next phase is underway, instituting far-right indoctrination in schools.
Calling critical race theorists conspiracists, MAGA insisted that, despite educators’ denials, CRT was secretly being taught in K-12. In an explainer, Heritage instructed parents how to find the CRT snuck into kids’ backpacks.
Now, red states are weaving MAGA conspiracies into Social Studies curriculum. In May, Oklahoma approved standards requiring teaching the conspiracy, led by Donald Trump, that the 2020 election was stolen and treating the Covid lab leak theory as fact. Florida’s new curriculum has students (in grades, 6, 7, 8, and 9-12!) learning “The History of Communism” in ways that PEN America describes as “a dangerous recasting of McCarthyism as patriotism and dissent as ‘un-American.’”
A Trump executive order in January summarized MAGA messaging on K-12 over these past few years:
parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies… Such an environment operates as an echo chamber, in which students are forced to accept these ideologies without question or critical examination.
The EO calls for schools to “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation” and goes on to clarify that the education they seek depicts the U.S. and its history in entirely glowing terms:
Now they’ve built an echo chamber to make this happen: the America 250 Civics Coalition, led by Education Secretary Linda McMahon. From American First Policy Institute to Hillsdale College to Heritage, Turning PointUSA, Moms4Liberty, and more, the initiative’s 40 partners are a diverse set of organizations from the far-right to farther-right to cheek-against-the-wall. They’re collaborating on propaganda for K-12 packaged as civics.