Hitler's nationalism agenda had racist elements which is not present in Trump's "Patriotic Education." Hitler only cared about the blond Aryan super-race Germans, not other Germans such as German Jews. Not all nationalism results in Nazi Germany. There are some very diverse countries with sizeable racial and religious minorities, such as Singapore, but they are very proud and nationalistic. They also have "patriotic education" such as singing the national anthem before class everyday.
Trump and conservatives are not racists, and believe that all people have equal opportunity (through merit, hard work, etc.).
Trump and conservatives believe that all people are born with the same intelligence and can overcome humble backgrounds through hard work. I do believe this is true; it is very easy in the U.S. to go from poverty to solid middle class and even upper middle class in the same generation or one generation without the help of benefits.
The Democrats' view of equal opportunity is racist because they believe certain people need extra help because they are incapable (as seen through Biden's racist remarks); many African-Americans have remained poor for generations despite voting for Democrats and living in Democratic-held cities.
Democrats have done a successful job at painting conservatives as racists but this view will only last so long; I'm glad the Trump administration is reaching out to minorities.
Trump's patriotic education basically consists of showing some respect for the founding fathers and "American heros." Of course bad aspects of our history should be covered but they should not be the primary aspect of U.S history, which is what the Left has done.
We don't know at the moment what the ''Patriotic Education '' exactly entails. So it's pretty difficult to make statements that it's less or more racist than the Nazification of the German/Austrian school program in the era of Adolf Hitler.
There are a few things that we can say, if we look at AOT's source, namely this: what are Trump's intentions with the Patriotic Education program? For instance, we know that Trump has only proposed to install a commission to look into the matter in hopes of formulating a new school program that basically put more emphasis on patriotism. Here's the quote:
''President Trump on Thursday said he would create a commission to promote "patriotic education" and announced the creation of a grant to develop a "pro-American curriculum.''
But what can we say more about the program, aside from this? Well, let's take a look at the next quote:
''
Trump blamed "the left," aided by the media and unnamed corporations, for "a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement" and said violent protests in recent months "are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools."
The Education Program is basically the repudiation of ''left wing indoctrination'' & an attempt to redraw history. So, how does this indoctrination entail, according to Trump? Let's take a look at his statement of ''left wing indoctrination'' in US schools.
For Trump and his ilk, children are apparently taught left-wing indoctrination in schools. They are taught that America also has a dark history, that the country was partly built on the blood, sweat and tears of slaves, and that this history of exploitation also partly explains why systemic racism is still a reality for many American POC. For Trump, this ''left-wing indoctrination'' is an attack on ''traditional faith, culture and values in the public square"
Trump doesn't make it explicit what he means with traditional faith and the values that are apparently under attack. Perhaps he means that recognition of exploitation of POC and systemic racism is in conflict with Christian morality? There are many references in the bible that refutes racism. One example is Paul's statement that each and every person is equally valuable:
''There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).''
If it's not Christian morality Trump is talking about, what else ? He might be talking about the ''American''culture & its values. What does it entail? Trump does not clarify it. But he does say this:
''For many years now, the radicals have mistaken Americans' silence for weakness. They're wrong. There is no more powerful force than a parent's love for their children''
The bold phrase actually implicitly says that ''radicals'' act unpatriotic (= not American) and tells us basically that the ''Americans' silence'' is the silent majority that does not share the views of these ''radicals'', which is a faux populist statement without any statistical back-up. If we assume that Trump means that the ''radicals'' are the BLM protestors, progressive / liberal politicians and other activists who think that America has exploited POC in the past, that the judicial/police system doesn't give equal value to POC, then it could be said that most Americans do not agree with their views. However, the Monmouth polls actually tells a different story: More than 65 percent of the public says racial and ethnic discrimination is a big problem in the United States & needs to be addressed, not denied (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ns-say-race-discrimination-is-big-problem-us/). So given the polls, there's actually politically legitimacy to overhaul the judicial / police system & other systemic shortcomings that devalue the lives of POC.
Another note about American culture: freedom of speech. It's a highly valued principle in most Western democracies, especially in the United States. It allows people, politicians, basically everyone to voice their opinions and exchange ideas in an intellectually honest debate without the threat of penalty if they do not go all the way to the edge of what we might consider ''indecent'', like hate speech. It's sad to see that the Republicans have a fair share in exploiting this principle at the expense of people who are not born here or have a ethnic background, but who try to built a decent living for themselves & their children, just like the very first colonists from Europe who settled in the thirteen colonies. For instance, Trump has called Mexicans rapists, Somali refugees criminals and think that most welfare recipients are black (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump#Mexican_immigrants). Other GOP politicians like Tom Cotton and Matt Gaetz also made such statements in a similar spirit.
We are already familiar with the concept ''alternative facts'', but have we heard of ''alternative history''? Yep, nothing is sacred anymore with this current administration. With the implementation of the Patriotic Education program, Trump actually aims to redraw history as it should have been, not what actually happened. The Republicans want ''to tell a more evenhanded version of the nation's history, including its early foundational reliance on slave labor and the longtime disenfranchisement of and systemic racism against racial minorities''.
So how do the Republicans want to put history of slavery and systemic racism into a more balanced perspective? Trump basically says that recognition of slave exploitation, in other words the Critical Race Theory/Project 1619, undermines the fabric of society & should therefore be erased from the school curriculum. In short, just ignore that it happened, that systemic abuse of people of color in the past explains why so many of their descendants did not enjoy the same rate in wealth accumulation, access to higher education & civil rights as ''European Americans'' & that the systemic abuse of ethnic minorities is different nowadays, yet somehow intact. What we ought to do, according to Trump, is just skip this part of history and just focus on the positive parts, like "the legacy of 1776," when American Colonies declared independence from Great Britain.
This Trumpian denialism of historic facts and events will not help us in understanding and addressing the structure of systemic abuse of non-white ethnic groups. This sweeping under the rug strategy will only maintain the system in which POC are treated as secondary citizens, just for the sake of ''traditional faith, culture and values in the public square''. In fact, the GOP has actually done the most unpatriotic thing you could think of: ignoring the 2nd paragraph of the declaration of independence, namely that ''all men are created equal''
Member
