Trump's Department of (Re)Education

Education — the kind most of us value, anyway — doesn’t (or shouldn’t) depend on the kinds of pledges we’re forced to make. It’s not an exaggeration to say that critical thinking has pushed our society forward for centuries, while those who value fixed belief above all have put the brakes on progress wherever they can.

A fixed belief in a literal interpretation of the Bible was not a prerequisite for the invention of the iPhone. You didn’t need to swear an allegiance to any nation to create vaccines that saved potentially billions of lives. And yet, according to

Andra Watkins

, pledges are a central feature of religious indoctrination in fundamentalist education.

Kids have to pledge allegiance to the flag. They have to pledge to the Christian flag. They have to pledge allegiance to the Bible.

When blind faith and belief are prerequisites, you get Chernobyl. We believe in the infallibility of our leader more than we believe that this power plant is melting down.

When critical thinking is an essential value, you solve real problems. But for the Christian nationalist, the problems are imaginary and the solutions are punitive. Examples?

Problem: Women are too independent.

Solution: Make it really hard to get a divorce.

See what happened there? There is no such thing as too much independence for a grown-up human being. It’s not a problem that needs to be addressed. But the proposed solution — and, sadly, this is an actual example that

Lisa Senecal

and Andra discuss in this conversation — will create more misery and suffering than it seeks to alleviate.

And now repeat with education. Repeat with voting rights. Repeat with LGBTQ+ rights. This is the playbook. They do not want to solve your problems. The Christian nationalists who are now in charge of our government want fealty. They want your allegiance.

Every Wednesday morning, Lisa and Andra get you caught up on the latest from the Christian nationalist world. At some point during every weekly conversation, someone makes the point that this stuff is all difficult to talk about. It’s dark. It’s gloomy and scary.

But somehow, by the end, we always feel more hopeful than when we began. For some inspiration, check out the latest from

Joe Trippi

, which Andra mentioned in the discussion above. It’s all about getting numbers behind our movement.

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And if you’re wondering exactly how to get numbers behind our movement, Lisa mentioned a series of events that are geared to rallying a million of us to fight back. Click the link below for more details and to sign up. And if you attend — let us know what you learned.

One Million Rising: Strategic Non-Cooperation to Fight Authoritarianism · No Kings