It’s been said those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. So do we ignore what’s happening all around us? Or do we acknowledge history, correct our national GPS and exit the dangerous road we’re on. Let’s be clear. The majority of this road is straight and narrow and, past a certain point, there is no room to maneuver. The final destination is a tyrannical neo-Nazi dictatorship dedicated to getting and maintaining power for the already rich, “contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, and a hierarchy of the worthy,” i.e. white supremacy (Britannica.com). But the beginning of the road is full of off-ramps. It’s time to study the map, determine where we are and where we’re heading—and decide if that’s really where we want to go.
There are warning signs all along the roadway. Banned books, attempts to limit who votes, laws allowing changes in voting outcomes “they” don’t like, Nazi regalia and swastikas popping up in public places (which Florida’s governor still can’t bring himself to condemn), intimidation and threats of violence directed at office holders and their families, bomb threats at Black colleges, attacks on Jews and other minorities, unequal application of the law depending on race, riots and rallies culminating in a violent insurrection, governmental hot-lines to report educators teaching historical facts (The Wall Street Journal), more hate groups and hate crimes; it’s all proliferating at breakneck speed. Add to this volatile mixture enough civilian-owned guns for every man, woman and child, with 67 million left over (Small Arms Survey and Congressional Research Service, 2018). What used to be shocking doesn’t seem worth more than a shoulder-shrug. Then add to these highway markers the fuel needed to maintain full speed ahead toward that final destination—the willful ignorance of facts.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia is a good place to determine where we are along this road to hell. In Germany, it started with propaganda and censorship; one of the first steps was banning books Nazis characterized as “un-German.” Here, we’re banning books deemed “unpatriotic” i.e. “un-American” and that make learners “uncomfortable” with, for instance, discussions about the Holocaust or America’s racial history (The Hill). Florida’s Senate advanced a bill (S.B.148) prohibiting school educators from teaching subjects that could make white people feel “discomfort.” Further, Florida’s Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees Act – yup, the WOKE Act, would allow parents to sue schools for actually teaching accurate history to our kids. And Florida’s House Bill 1055 would require cameras and video-taping in public school classrooms. Similar legislation is being proposed in multiple states.
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist, would be proud.
While Nazi Germany banned un-German books, Republican lawmakers in Arkansas, Iowa, and Mississippi filed bills that would cut funding to any K-12 school or college that provided lessons derived from the 1619 Project, the Pulitzer Prize winning book that delves into the highly researched beginnings of America and the legacy of slavery (USA Today). Instead, some states are pushing what Barbara Rodriguez, writing for USA Today, calls “patriotic” education. Governors in Mississippi and South Dakota are proposing funding only curriculum that teaches the “incredible accomplishments of the American Way” and “why the U.S. is the most special nation in the history of the world.”
The problem isn’t so much what they propose to teach but rather what has been eliminated from the curriculum. These content controllers may be bemoaning what has already been accomplished. According to Claims Conference Poll (2020), 63% of Americans under 40 didn’t know that six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 48% couldn’t name a single Holocaust concentration camp (there were 923 of them) and 11% of Americans think the Holocaust was caused by Jews. According to The New York Times, most Americans (60%) know little or nothing about our newest national holiday, Juneteenth. And according to a Washington Post-SSRS poll, knowledge about the history of slavery is “spotty at best.” What’s interesting is that a majority of Americans across age, racial, political, and generational lines agree the legacy of slavery affects American society today. Shouldn’t we understand that history in order to understand its legacy? Apparently not. Fox News mentioned “critical race theory” 1,300 times in four months; “it’s the new bogeyman for people unwilling to acknowledge our country’s racist history and how it impacts the present” (Brookings.edu).
Then there’s the question of facts. Joseph Goebbels purportedly said, “A lie told once remains a lie, but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.” The seditious insurrection on January 6 was the result of Trump’s Big Lie, continuing still and repeated over and over–that the 2020 election was rigged and massive voter fraud prevented his second term. And then this: the Republican National Committee, which speaks for the Republican Party, stated the seditious insurrection was really just “legitimate political discourse.” That would be laughable except for the lives lost and damage done, with videos documenting it all. Those videos? No problem, because “the Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command” (1984, George Orwell).
Hannah Arendt wrote, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule… (are) people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and true and false no longer exist”
(The Origins of Totalitarianism). We can add, “and they don’t care.”
We are reaching the point of no return. We have the map and see the hazards. Lao-Tzu said, “If you do not change direction, you will end up where you are headed.” It’s time to take the exit ramp before all options disappear.
Marsha Shearer is a resident of The Villages and the author of “America in Crisis: Essays on the Failed Presidency of Donald J. Trump.”
