Nina-Bytes: Poisoning the Well
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Corrupting Seeds in Fertile Soil
I don’t think most observers, even those who understand the importance of propaganda to the rise of Trumpism in US political life, understand how vital the establishment of a state of false “unreality” is to an ongoing fascist project. You can learn a lot about how this process works by studying interwar Germany and the rise of the Nazi party, but since mainstream understanding of Nazism in broader US society pretty much doesn’t start until Hitler invaded Poland, or worse, the Nazi regime started conducting the Holocaust, the extreme lengths fascists in Germany went to propagandize and indoctrinate people, young people in particular, is rarely examined for context in relation to our modern “fascist moment” under Trump. This has created a media environment where even the most crass and cultish pro-Trump propaganda efforts are reported mostly in the context of things the American First fascist movement does to flatter Downmarket Mussolini’s massive ego; any focus on the downstream cultural effects of these efforts to mainstream fascist ideology, glorify a would-be dictator, and alter the understood historical record of our society, is fleeting, or accidental.
This lack of attention to historically documented details is exacerbated by the very human tendency to externalize our experiences; because most adult observers in our discourse understand Trump cultists are lying (including folks who continue to actively support the regime) the assumption is that other people also know that these distortions, lies, and revisions are propaganda too. The problem with this theory is it presumes a well informed US public, and in particular, it totally ignores young people who are not necessarily equipped with the baseline knowledge and lived experience that allows them to identify propaganda, fascist or otherwise. None of us are immune to propaganda, and if it didn’t work, our ruling classes wouldn’t spend so much money producing and disseminating it year after year. If for example you recognize all the ways in which racist 9/11-era “clash of civilizations” propaganda helped produce the environment that would allow Trump to become President of the United States, twice, then you understand the long term effects at work here.
You know who doesn’t ignore the malleability of young people’s opinions when they don’t have the knowledge or lived experience to know they’re being manipulated? Fascist regimes, including fascist regimes like the one Trump is running. In fact, they’re actively relying on indoctrinating young people to generate long term support for their enforced unreality and a permanently-fascist society. Which is of course why recent reports that the GOP controlled government of Oklahoma will begin teaching Trump’s “big lie” about the 2020 election being stolen (among many other ahistorical obscenities’) as fact, should alarm the crap out of you.
Oklahoma high schools to teach 2020 election conspiracy theories as fact
“After a group of parents, educators and other Oklahoma school officials worked to develop the new social studies standards, Walters assembled an executive committee consisting mostly of out-of-state pundits from conservative thinktanks to revise them. He said he wanted to focus more on American exceptionalism and incorporate the Bible as an instructional resource.
Among those Walters appointed to the review committee were Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation and a key figure in its Project 2025 blueprint for a conservative presidential administration, and Dennis Prager, a radio talkshow host who founded Prager U, a conservative non-profit that offers “pro-American” educational materials for children that some critics say are not accurate or objective.
In a statement to the Associated Press, Walters defended teaching students about “unprecedented and historically significant” elements of the 2020 presidential election.”
Folks who aren’t familiar with politics in Oklahoma or unhinged fascist cultists who worship Trump may not be familiar with state school superintendent Ryan Walters, but calling him an “ideologue” really doesn’t cover how entirely committed he is to Christian Nationalist ideology and the Trump regime’s enforced unreality. This is the guy behind Oklahoma’s wasteful and corrupt attempted purchase of Trump-branded Bibles, as well as a Project 2025-style plan to restore “religious education” to Oklahoma public schools. He’s also a big proponent of new innovations in trying to make state taxpayers support religious charter schools that will presumably teach Christian Nationalist doctrine. As the article notes, in addition to teaching the Big Lie as fact in Oklahoma schools, Walters also wants to teach kids that Covid came from a lab in China and “remove education about Black Lives Matter and George Floyd’s murder,” just in case you were worried he might not be racist enough. In other words, it’s safe to say that indoctrinating kids with horrifying reactionary ideas that support an objectively fascist agenda is Ryan’s jam.
As you might imagine, in his short time as the darling of the Trump-loving Christian Nationalist movement, Walters has acquired a large number of opponents to his fundie fascist indoctrination agenda. Oklahoma may be a deeply red state that overwhelmingly supported Trump at the ballot box, but local parents, teachers, and even some more traditional Republican officials have criticized the curriculum changes that Walters arbitrarily moved to impose here. As if to demonstrate the importance of Oklahoma as a pilot program for the larger fascist movement’s youth indoctrination efforts, this public resistance has been met by aggressive pushback from organized reactionary hate groups like the infamous (for quoting Hitler) Moms for Liberty, who have threatened to run out of office any GOP politician who opposes the propaganda Walters wants schools to teach as fact. Unfortunately, this strategy was effective enough to prevent a recent state resolution to reject these appalling curriculum standards from passing in the Oklahoma legislature.
Finally it should be noted that teachers in Oklahoma told The Guardian that these guidelines still “leave room” to teach kids the truth, but I think that’s a rather naïve position that ignores the purpose of this project. For starters, a simple perusal of the headlines in our national papers makes it abundantly clear that Trump’s fascist cult of personality contains numerous educators or at least people who claim to be; just because there are plenty of teachers who plan to teach the truth around these absurd curriculum standards doesn’t mean there won’t be many more who will be thrilled to finally have permission to inject their ideological poison into their lessons. This also ignores the fact that the kind of people who work towards indoctrinating children into fascist and Christian Nationalist ideology are fascists, and fascists are not known for their willingness to tolerate dissent. Trump cult fascists in Oklahoma are now establishing an official narrative for our reality in their educational curriculum, and you can bet your ass that they’re not going to tolerate public workers teaching in opposition to that “reality” for very long.
The bottom line here is that the war over the truth, and what your children have a right to learn, has only just begun, and if the Trump regime and its myriad fascist supporters around the country have their way, Oklahoma won’t be the last state to slip under the dark waves of fascist propaganda and Christian Nationalist ideology. The nazis are indeed, coming for your children.
– Nina Illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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