Trump to Launch ‘1776 Commission’ to ‘Promote Patriotic Education’ in Schools
President Trump on Thursday said he soon would establish a national commission to promote “patriotic” history in America’s schools and counter what he called “propaganda” that is teaching students to be “ashamed of their own” country.
The president made the comments on Constitution Day at the National Archives Museum during a White House conference on American history.
The new commission will be called the 1776 Commission and promote “patriotic education,” he said. Trump said he will sign an executive order to establish it.
“It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding,” he said.
Trump made the announcement during a speech in which he criticized a “radical movement” within the nation that is attempting to “demolish” American history.
“We can’t let that happen,” he said.
The U.S. Constitution, he said, was the “product of centuries of tradition, wisdom and experience.” No political document “has done more to advance the human condition or propel the engine of progress,” Trump said.
“Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character,” he said. “We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world.”
The “left-wing cultural revolution,” Trump said, “is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.” Children today, he said, “are instructed from propaganda tracts” that “try to make students ashamed of their own history.”
Trump criticized critical race theory as a “Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation” and that “our entire society must be radically transformed.” He described The New York Times’ 1619 Project as a project that “rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.”
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Trump said. “America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal and prosperous nation in human history.”
Left-wing “mobs,” Trump said, “have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy.”
“The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement – the universal symbol of the rule of law in America. These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media, and even large corporations,” Trump said. “Whether it is the mob on the street, or the cancel culture in the boardroom, the goal is the same: to silence dissent, to scare you out of speaking the truth, and to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage, and their very way of life. We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny. We will reclaim our history and our country for citizens of every race, color, religion and creed.”
Related:
‘We Only Kneel to Almighty God’: Trump Pledges to Defend America’s History and Ideals
Photo courtesy: The White House Flickr
Video courtesy: The White House
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
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