Erasing And Revising History To Stoke MAGA Agenda
A Fascist Project
The Trump White House has recently debuted their “Story Of America” series, which will serve as the ideological foundation of Trump reinvention of “patriotism”, educational curriculum, and historical basis for Trump’s Ministry of Culture.
No doubt, it will be used in the Trump propaganda campaign to hijack the 250 anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and is related to the upcoming June 14 250th anniversary of the US Army, where Trump will emulate his fellow fascist Dictators with a $45 million personal birthday celebration.
Not surprisingly, the series begins with an introduction that focuses on the Declaration of Independence, ironically highlighting Trump’s “long train of abuses”.
We hear historical echoes, but not to the Founding Fathers:
Let me run down a couple of the major characteristics of the fascist ideology.
First, there is a glorification of the leadership cult, a commitment to an absolute and supreme leader.
Second, there is a glorification of the nation-state as an end in itself. Everything in the State, everything for the State, nothing outside the State, that was Mussolini’s dictum, and was Hitler’s also. If fact, with Hitler, Rudolph Hess once said: “Adolph Hitler is Germany – Germany is Adolph Hitler” thereby combining the leadership cult and the State cult in one.
Third, there was a glorification of military conquest and jingoism, the glory that the State is vitalized by subduing, conquering, and taking other people you increase your own power and glory.
Fourth, there was the propagation of a folk mysticism; a xenophobia and a racism. The Nazi slogan was “One people, One State, One Leader”. The other side of the folk mysticism – this special blood, special legacy, the atavistic wonders of our particular people – was a xenophobia, a racism, a hatred of other peoples and other nationalities.
Fifth, there was an opposition to Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism and to all left egalitarian and class movements, along with opposition to trade unions, opposition to labor parties, and opposition to other working class organizations. ~~~ The Functions Of Fascism
All of that sounds familiar, no? (Do I really need to annotate this with specific recent examples from Trump and MAGA?)
The series is a partnership between the Trump White House, the US Department of Education, and right wing Christian Nationalist Hillsdale College.
For an excellent take down of the series introduction, by Hillside President Larry Arnn, check out this piece:
The deeper problem arises when Arnn then distorts the sweep and trajectory of all that follows. To Arnn, and presumably to the White House and the MAGA movement it represents, the course of American history has been a steady decline from that founding perfection. Arnn accomplishes this by framing the Civil War not as a conflict over the question of what were the principles of the nation but as a fight simply to restore the ideals of the Framers: “Washington did something for the first time extremely honorable, including the defense of the Declaration of Independence on battlefields… Abraham Lincoln comes along later and he wants to restore all of that. He took the view that that was a very hard thing to do, but it wasn’t a new thing to do…”
This is a fundamental distortion of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and the nature of the nation’s bloodiest war. As Gary Willis shows in his brilliant Lincoln at Gettysburg, Lincoln’s short speech was in fact a clarion call for the nation to fulfill the ideals IT HAD NOT YET REALIZED. The key moment in the address was when Lincoln summoned his listeners, and all Americans, to “the great task remaining before us”, to fight for “a new birth of freedom.” These words ring because they speak of the realization and the truth that Lincoln had arrived at: not only could a house divided not stand, but that a nation founded on slavery could not also be one of law, of liberty, or of a people’s government.
Here, then, is exposed the inner logic of this “Story of America.” It is the pious belief that the USA was born in perfection and has since steadily fallen from that Eden. There never was a need for a “new birth of freedom” because the original white settler slave state permitted all the freedom and justice the nation required.
[Update: 5/10/25 – The invocation of Lincoln is no accident. MAGA want a civil war. And Lincoln suspended habeas corpus – initially unilaterally, but later backed by an act of Congress – which Trump will soon repeat, but by unilateral dictate, with no Congressional authorization, see:
The WH says Trump is considering suspending habeas corpus.
Meanwhile, masked armed ICE agents arrested the Mayor Of Newark yesterday outside an ICE detention facility (a private prison) and manhandled 3 Congress persons, 2 of whom were women one 80 years old. Another fascist stunt for the MAGA base. ~~~ end update.]~~~ end update.]
The first episode in the series not surprisingly is on “The Shot Heard Round The World”
That episode suffers similar historical falsifications, revisionisms, and lack of any discussion of the substantive principles and values of the Revolution as Hillsdale’s Larry Arnn’s introduction.
Dangerously, it celebrates militarism, an empty “patriotism”, and violent revolution, virtually inciting the righteous MAGA January 6 “patriots” to further violence.
We can expect much more of this from the Trump White House propaganda operation, particularly from their “alternative media” influencer cadres.
Finally, lest anyone believe Hillsdale or Larry Arnn have any intellectual credibility or objectivity, consider this email I relied from Larry Arnn just yesterday.
The “survey questions” are an absurd and ideological attack.
Hillsdale is no academic or religious institution – it’s a political propaganda mill supporting a fascist project.