America has its fair share of violent and troubling history, from our country’s abuse of Native Americans during colonial times, to the Civil Rights Act being delayed until 1964.
These monuments are shrouded in unjust violence that MAGA and other extreme Republicans want to erase from history in order to protect the reputation of the U.S. However, acknowledging and responding to history strengthens the nation. Only by recognizing the wrongdoings of our ancestors can a nation move on and strive to improve.
One main way conservatives are trying to sanitize the past is by leaving out certain details when teaching the next generation about controversial historic events. For example, the conservative media company PragerU produces content in the form of textbooks and short online videos that are similar to the political propaganda we have seen throughout history. According to PragerU’s biannual report from 2023, their children’s shows “are created to inoculate children against the woke and anti-American leftist narrative taught in most schools, while enriching students with a fun, engaging education.” This kind of aggressive agenda focused on bashing an opposite party’s views rather than prioritizing the education of children perfectly sums up what PragerU is about: indoctrination.
Along with downplaying the atrocities committed by Columbus, PragerU also promotes fossil fuels by denying that climate change exists. President Trump cutting funding to PBS leaves a new generation of children without a key source of unbiased, accurate educational entertainment, and with the endorsement of PragerU, it may replace PBS in the near future. If this kind of indoctrination is not responded to, the next generation will be unaware of the atrocities that were committed in the U.S.’s past, making them unable to recognize when conditions that sparked the original violence arise again. The worst thing that can happen in these situations is when history repeats itself.
Private companies are not the only ones adopting this agenda, unfortunately. Politicians and other groups made a record 1,269 efforts to censor books and other resources, mainly because of their subject matter relating to LGBTQ+ or critical race theory. This censorship of literature based on the message that these pieces bring is similar to the censorship evinced in some of the most prominent dictatorships in history. For example, the Chinese Communist Party made it so that the people of China could not read books that slandered or questioned the authority of their dictator Mao Zedong. This was a method of controlling the ideas that people consumed. The more politicians are allowed to get away with erasure and censorship, the further they will go in indoctrinating youth.
Recently, this alteration of history made its way into public school education in Florida through Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. He announced that Florida textbooks would teach students about how slavery in America benefited enslaved people because of the skills they learned, as well as the fact that later on in life, they went on to join society with paid jobs. Putting this kind of opinionated and blatantly false information in textbooks harms the education of the nation’s children by completely ignoring or, even worse, misconstruing history. Educational materials should be based on fact, not biased perspective.
American over-glorification is also seen in the recent portrayal of Manifest Destiny, also known as the white man’s divine right to claim the land of the Native Americans. Conservative politicians find this belief to be acceptable and even openly endorse it. An example is the Department of Homeland Security’s use of Morgan Weistling’s 19th-century–style painting, A Prayer for a New Life, posted on social media with the caption “Remember your Homeland’s Heritage.” A government agency openly celebrating Manifest Destiny with the endless death and displacement of Native Americans that it brought is truly disturbing.
The Trail of Tears is often presented in schools as simply the “relocation” of Native American tribes so that European settlers could have land to live on and develop, the reality was far more brutal. Tens of thousands of Indigenous peoples were forcibly removed from their homelands under the Indian Removal Act. The journey was marked by starvation, disease and exhaustion, killing thousands. By altering and softening the vocabulary to “relocation” or focusing on westward expansion, history lessons downplay the violence and suffering, contributing to the ongoing erasure of Native trauma.
People tend to believe that history repeats itself, and with all of the violence the U.S. has had in history, it should try to learn from it and change our behavior, rather than let it repeat. This is why these recent, politically-charged history cleansing attempts are so harmful to our nation. Our history, the good and the bad, is what made our country what it is today. If they change that, then its identity is compromised.
