Trump's war on history and education are at odds with American greatness

Signs from activists with the Sunrise Movement sit outside the US Department of Education on March 20, in Washington. Donald Trump signed an executive order to dissolve the Education Department. Getty

US President Donald Trump’s early executive orders and actions have generated significant attention and/or concern in the country.

There has been extensive coverage of Mr Trump’s empowering of Elon Musk’s orders to gut the federal workforce; closing USAID; plans to deport large numbers of migrants and refugees, including those seeking asylum; on-again, off-again imposition of tariffs; flaunting the will of Congress by withholding appropriated funding; banning “diversity, equity and inclusion” programmes; restrictions on treatment of transgender young people; and defying court-ordered injunctions by claiming that the powers of the presidency can’t be restrained by the judiciary.

Buried in the flurry of the US President’s orders is one that has been largely ignored, despite being potentially the most far-reaching of these acts.

Titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”, this directive lays bare Mr Trump’s intention to roll back the gains that have been made over the past half a century by historians working to present a more accurate portrait of American and world history.

None of this is benign. One of the hallmarks of strongman rule is the indoctrination of the public to believe in the 'glorification of the nation'

Mr Trump calls these efforts “anti-American, subversive, harmful and false”, and demands instead that schools devote themselves to “patriotic education” that will “instil a patriotic admiration for our incredible nation” – in other words, to teach the kind of history Americans learnt three generations ago.

As late as the early 1960s, when American schools taught “World History”, it was Eurocentric. It started with Stone Age man (in Europe), then passed on to the Greek and Roman empires, the Holy Roman Empire, the “Dark Ages”, the emergence of the nation-states of Europe, the discovery of the New World, the birth pangs that accompanied the first centuries of the US (which includes “fighting Indians” and a civil war over “states’ rights”), the Industrial Revolution, the two World Wars that sandwiched the Great Depression, and the challenges posed by the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

In this narrative, the US was depicted as the fulfilment of history, the conveyor of the values of freedom and democracy, and, as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright was fond of saying, “the indispensable nation”.

An educator from Vermont outside of the US Department of Education on March 20, 2025 in Washington, Getty Images via AFP

There was no mention of African history or Islamic civilisation. There were just four paragraphs devoted to China, which we were told was “opened up to the West” by Marco Polo. And the only mention of Arabs was in a short section on the ways nomadic peoples were forced to adapt to living under harsh conditions, including a few paragraphs each on the Arab Bedouin of the desert and the Laplanders of the frozen tundra of Northern Europe.

American history was distorted and romanticised. Slavery was given short shrift as was the genocide and land theft committed against the Indigenous peoples of North America. This is what Americans were taught.

Things changed in the 1960s as a result of the cultural revolution in America that was prompted by the civil rights and then anti-Vietnam War movements. In their wake, there was the blossoming of other social and political movements, including women’s liberation and concern for the environment.

The expanding consciousness inspired by this period of challenge and change led to a re-examination of American history and its place in the world. And with this came a focus on black history, Native American history, women’s history and an expansion of the writing and teaching of world history to include the perspectives and stories of peoples who had previously been ignored. This was not an effort to create several separate histories, but to ensure that future generations would benefit from learning a more complete and integrated human history.

Of course, there was pushback by conservatives who wanted to restore the mythologies of the past. It will be recalled that Mr Trump fired his opening salvo in this war on history during his first term when he denounced The New York Times’s stunning anthology of essays and poetry titled The 1619 Project.

That huge undertaking put in focus the role of the conquering European settlers in America as they committed crimes of genocide against the indigenous peoples they encountered and then introduced the enormously destructive enterprise of slavery in the New World and its enduring legacy. Mr Trump countered this effort with an initiative titled The 1776 Project that sought to do nothing more than to restate the myth of America, shorn of its dark underside.

The US President’s new executive order is the latest iteration of this war on history. After decrying the “radical, anti-Americanism” that he claims teaches that the US is “fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory”, he calls for “an accurate, honest, unifying and ennobling characterisation of America’s founding” and “a celebration of America’s greatness and history”.

Mr Trump goes farther by calling for “Re-establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission and Promoting Patriotic Education” that will be charged with sponsoring programmes to encourage patriotic learning and glorification of America’s battles and war heroes. The order further requires that all educational institutions receiving federal funds must hold specific patriotic educational programmes, and that “relevant agencies of government” shall monitor compliance with this requirement. In other words, do what we demand or lose your funding.

None of this is benign. One of the hallmarks of strongman rule is the indoctrination of the public to believe in the “glorification of the nation”. The celebrated American author Sinclair Lewis once predicted that “fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross”.

With these cautionary words in mind, attention must be paid to Mr Trump’s executive order. It is a worrisome step down this dangerous path.