AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
President Trump on Thursday announced several measures aimed at promoting what he called “patriotic education” while blasting progressive efforts at re-examining American history through a race-critical lens as “toxic propaganda.”
At the White House Conference on American History, Trump took aim at the 1619 Project, a series of essays in the New York Times re-examining America’s legacy of slavery which has become a common foil for right-wing politicians, calling it “ideological poison” that will “dissolve the civic bonds” of America.
Trump also announced that he will sign an executive order establishing a commission to “promote patriotic education,” which will be called the “1776 Commission,” in contrast with the 1619 Project.
Trump’s executive order was met with fierce backlash from commentators, who recognized it as authoritarian; New York Times opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo tweeted, “Kim Jong Un wasn’t writing him love letters, it was an instructional manual.”
Trump has been pushing for something strictly prohibited by the constitution in recent weeks. “We’re going to win Nevada and we’re going to win four more years in the White House. And then after that, we’ll negotiate,” Trump said at a rally in Minden, Nevada on Sunday despite the 22nd amendment to the Constitution prohibiting a president from running for a third term. Trump added that he was “probably entitled” to a third term “based on the way we were treated.”
Navy Vet