Communism isn’t the biggest threat to our country now. It’s the man who would be king.
I don’t know if Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick thinks he sees a communist in every public school, but one of the bills on his list of top 40 issues is Senate Bill 24, which would require Texas schools to teach students in fourth through 12th grade about communism and its evils.
Some of Patrick’s supporters apparently see a communist in every classroom, as well as behind every tree on the playground. That’s because many right-wingers like to characterize anything they dislike or fear about public institutions – including public schools – as that old bugaboo, “communism.”
This would include the diversity, equity and inclusion programs that public schools and universities established to make all their students feel welcome and achieve success. Playing to ignorance, racism and fear among their political base, Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott and President Trump have declared war on DEI programs – as well as teaching the often painful truth about our history and culture — to undermine public education and promote privatization.
I suspect DEI was part of what U.S. Sen Ted Cruz’s father –Rafael Cruz – was talking about last week when he appeared as a witness for Senate Bill 24 before the Senate Education K-16 Committee.
“In many instances our classrooms are failing us because they’re following an agenda,” the elder Cruz testified. “It is not our agenda. It is a communist agenda that has, like tentacles, immersed itself into our education system. So, we need to retrieve our educational system from that evil agenda.”
Dictatorial practitioners of communism have hurt a lot of people, including Rafael Cruz, but DEI isn’t communism, nor is it evil. Neither is public education, the backbone of our democracy, which is now under serious attack by President Trump, aided and abetted by the likes of Abbott and Patrick.
Rafael Cruz, who is a minister, also spreads the myth that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. It wasn’t. The founders believed in the separation of church and state and the freedom to practice any religion or no religion.
Texas students should learn about communism, although the biggest threat to democracy in the United States right now is not communism, but authoritarianism. They can be practiced together, but they are not the same thing.
Trump, whom Patrick adores, is not a communist, but he gives strong indications of yearning to be an authoritarian, someone eager to ignore the constitutional restraints on his office if necessary to enact his agenda. “Long live the king,” he recently posted on social media.
Trump has issued many illegal executive orders that the Republican majority in Congress has ignored, but federal judges have blocked some of them. Trump is trying to see what he can get away with, how far he can go toward an authoritarian state, and the big test will come when and if the Supreme Court issues an order that he ignores, creating a constitutional crisis. He already has ignored or not fully complied with some lower court orders.
Adolf Hitler was an extreme authoritarian, a totalitarian, who led a Nazi regime that started World War II, causing the deaths of many millions, including in the Holocaust.
Trump is no Hitler, but he is a nationalist, alienating long-time free world allies, exacerbating political differences in our country and stirring up some of the same passions that brought Hitler to power – racism, fear, hatred, bigotry against people who are perceived as “different.” That’s what Trump’s campaigns against immigration and DEI programs are largely about, bolstered by a steady stream of lies and misrepresentations.
His political attacks on education, which are threatening to spread, are attacks on democracy. Abbott, Patrick and their allies are operating from a similar political playbook in Texas, and, until there is a change in power, who knows where it may end.
No, communism isn’t the biggest threat to our country now. That distinction belongs to the man in the White House. Texas students also should be taught about all authoritarians and how they come to power.
