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Call the GOP What it Is: The Anti-Education Party [1]
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Date: 2022-08-29
Sketch by the author
American conservatism was once the province of tight-assed, bow-tied intellectuals like William F. Buckley and George Will. By golly, even Tucker Carlson began his broadcasting career wearing a bow knot under his yapping, pimpled jaw.
Then came the self-described “compassionate conservative” George W. Bush, who preferred hacking brush on his Texas ranch over cracking tomes on supply-side economics. W’s White House tenure marked the dawning of an era of Republican anti-intellectualism. From that point on, being a Republican meant expressing disdain for folks, especially liberals, with high IQs and/or advanced academic degrees. A good 21st century Republican is expected to mock any pretentious, book-readin’ smarty pants who knows shit, and deigns to share factual information by way of multi-syllabic words.
But now, the Rs have taken their disdain for intellectual curiosity and actual knowledge to a new low. And, thus far, I’m not hearing Dems taking advantage of what seems an obvious branding opportunity.
American voters are highly motivated by anything regarding their children’s education. And, in its efforts to exploit parental concern, the GOP has revealed itself to be not simply anti-intellectual. They have earned a new, even more dubious distinction…
Republicans are the “Anti-Education” party. They don’t want your kids to learn or know stuff… simple as that.
Republicans are dead set against America’s children being exposed to the true, accurate history of our country. In the guise of “protecting” students from inconvenient facts that might make them feel “uncomfortable” or “ashamed,” Rs are determined to re-write (i.e. whitewash) history to make it more palatable for oh-so-fragile, young, white minds.
Rs have so little respect for our children (and for us, as parents) that they take it upon themselves to paint a rosy picture of what is, in a plethora of ways, a thorny past, a past that set the stage for our thorny present. And, if past is prologue, the ugliest chapters of our history are doomed to be repeated time and time again.
In the same breath, the rightwing has unearthed some radically twisted version of originalism to contend that the founders never intended to keep church and state separate. This argument, they assert, justifies on-going efforts to inject fundamentalist Christian values into classrooms and school curriculums. It’s nothing more than a self-serving ploy to time travel into a fabricated account of history in order to read the minds of dead guys. This bogus claim provides the evangelical right an effective cudgel in their campaign to forbid any mention in public schools of any sexual orientation, gender identification, or partnered relationship that doesn’t fall in lock step with the strictest patriarchal precepts of fundamentalist Christianity.
The anti-education party doesn’t just want our children to be ignorant of the past. They want our children to remain blind to realities that are weaved intrinsically into our daily, family, school, and community experiences: i.e. queer, trans, and non-binary folk, same-sex partnerships, and families with two dads or two moms. Furthermore, anti-education Rs seek to marginalize, shame, and erase any child, parent, or teacher who finds themselves unable to conform to their narrow, dogmatic moral code.
And, as anti-education Republicans go about censoring teachers and forcing gifted truth tellers to seriously consider leaving the teaching profession, they have the nerve to decry progressives as purveyors of “cancel culture.” I guess hypocrites have no concept of irony.
Anti-education Republicans drone on about governmental overreach and any restriction to their “liberty” or “personal freedoms,” yet they don’t trust you or your children to make sound decisions about what books are appropriate. They threaten librarians and pressure libraries to remove anything from the stacks that recounts a perspective on the American story that doesn’t match their myopic version of it. Yet, they dare to mock progressives as snowflakes. Oh, yes, the irony pervades.
Republicans are brilliant at twisting progressive slogans in order to paint Dems in a negative light. They’ve skillfully taken ownership and weaponized such terms as “fake news,” “critical race theory,” and “defund the police.” Amazingly, they’ve managed to stigmatize anti-racism and anti-fascism as if living by such values is tantamount to mortal sin.
It’s time Republicans got a big dose of their own medicine.
The GOP is “The Anti-Education Party.”
Every Republican candidate deserves to wear those letters in scarlet. Each and every one of them should all be branded with that badge of dishonor.
And Dem candidates and their campaigns should refer to them as such, relentlessly, from this day forward.
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