The Patriot Post® · Biden Tries to Make 1776 History
In normal times, Victor Davis Hansen agreed, talking about America’s founding wouldn’t be controversial. But these are not normal times. And the fierce reaction to President Trump’s 1776 project proves it.
After four years of waiting to get their hands on the Oval Office, Democrats could have chosen any number of priorities to kick off Joe Biden’s first day. Yet, despite the pandemic, the turmoil, the global uncertainty, how did the new administration spend its afternoon? Reinstating transgender bathrooms and erasing the facts on U.S. history. It was a telling moment for the new president, who decided that scrubbing the truth about America’s foundation was more important than even reinstating overseas abortion funding. Why? Because he knows that a generation who knew America’s true roots wouldn’t tolerate what’s happening in the media and Left today.
If people actually read the report from the 1776 Commission released Monday — instead of taking MSNBC’s word for it — they’d realize that their findings aren’t “laughable.” On the contrary, they might be the one roadmap to unity no liberal seems interested in taking. After all, this was a group of historians, lawyers, academics, scholars, authors, former elected officials, and former public servants. Their task, the Heritage Foundation’s Michael Gonzalez said, was simple: creating a report that would “better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States in 1776.” Right now, Gonzalez argued, the Left “is seeking to change the future of America by changing our understanding of the past.”
“Yes, America is imperfect,” Hansen said. “And also great.” Nothing about the Commission’s report “whitewashed… the many injustices after 1776 and 1787” — including slavery. “Instead,” Hansen pointed out, “the commission explains why and how these wrongs were inconsistent with the letter and spirit of our founding documents.” But it also points out that “using race, ethnicity, sexual preference, and gender to define who we are — rather than seeing these traits as incidental when compared with our natural and shared humanity — will lead to a dangerous fragmentation of American society.”
But unfortunately for Americans, the Left needs fragmentation to accomplish what it wants: a complete departure from the moral and transcendent truth that built democracy. They don’t want healing or unity — not really. As Dr. Carol Swain, one of the members of the Commission, told me on “Washington Watch,” “What the Left is doing to us right now [through censorship and other blacklisting] would not be tolerated if people actually knew how our nation was founded, what it’s about, and what people have lived and died for all of these centuries.”
Being proud of our country doesn’t mean we excuse slavery or racism or any number of blights on our country. And, as Victor says, the Commission doesn’t suggest “that civic education and American history should ignore or contextualize past national shortcomings.” But those wrongs shouldn’t define America, it should only make us strive harder for the ideals of our founding.
That’s difficult, of course, in a nation where most students know nothing about them. And that’s by design. The Left doesn’t want to have an honest conversation about America’s history — or any conversation, really. The days of classic liberals protecting and encouraging debate are over. The facts aren’t on the side of their progressive agenda — so they want to silence our side. And our side is anchored in the same truths that America was founded upon — truths the radicals don’t want our young people to know, because they’re much harder to brainwash after.
“Without our common faith in the equal right of every individual American to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, authoritarian visions of government and society could become increasingly alluring alternatives to self-government based on the consent of the people,” President Trump wrote when he formed the commission.
For years, too many parents have left it up to the public schools to teach their children a love and respect for America. Now, more than ever, it’s obvious: that job is ours and ours alone. We cannot abandon it.
Originally published here.
‘We Have to Stop Pretending Public Schools Aren’t Bad’
There’ve been plenty of issues over the last year and a half where Democrats have had to “bring Joe Biden along.” Whether it was the Hyde amendment, socialized medicine, or religious tests, the Democrat had to move several clicks to the Left to meet the party’s radical new standard. That was never the case with the LGBT agenda. In fact, you could make the argument that when it comes to things like transgenderism, it’s Biden doing the pulling. And his first day behind the Resolute Desk proved it.
A liberal with a cause is concerning. A liberal who actually believes in that cause is dangerous. Our nation will find that out for itself under this president, sooner than many had hoped. The man who said the only way to restore America’s soul was “unity, unity” showed how insincere he is about pursuing it hours later when he picked up a pen and declared war on people of faith. But then, it’s not like he didn’t warn us.
Biden’s “day one” agenda, we heard over and over again, would be throwing thousands of years of human gender norms on the trash heap of history. “I will just flat-out change the law,” he told one mother. And Wednesday, he kept that promise, flinging open the door to gender-free bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, changing rooms, sports teams, and overnights. It is the “trans-ing” of America, and under this administration, it’s only beginning.
The Federalist’s Joy Pullmann knew this was coming. Just look at what’s already happened, she wrote in a powerful piece that every American should read about what Biden’s election means for education. We already had schools keeping students’ gender choices a secret, male coaches forced to watch naked female students, schools dishing out hormones and drugs without parents’ consent, preschoolers and kindergarteners subjected to teachers who identity as transgender and scarring sex lessons they don’t understand.
“All of this,” Joy insists, “will be accelerated under a Biden administration. This is not conjecture. He and his campaign have publicly pledged to do it.” His own political history ought to prove to everyone how sincere he is on this gender extremism. The man who outed Barack Obama on same-sex marriage in 2012 has been a true loyalist in the cause, insisting eight years ago — when most Democrats wouldn’t even touch the issue — that transgenderism is the “civil rights issue of our time.”
Now, with the full weight of government and Congress behind him, Biden can make good on his plans — which is so outrageous it makes the Obama administration look like prudes. He’ll punish schools that don’t follow his mandate for “putting naked children of both sexes together,” Joy explains. He’ll punish teachers and children for believing the truth about biology and gender. He’ll use schools as 24/7 indoctrination centers for “the Left’s depraved views of sexuality that conflict with the views of all major world religions.” He’ll make sure your freshman daughter has a male college roommate — and prosecute her if they complain. He’ll send girls’ sports teams away to meets and let boys sleep in the female rooms.
And if parents think their kids are safe because they’re in private religious schools, they’ve got another thing coming. If the school takes a dime of federal money or participates in something as innocuous as the federal meal program, they’ll be ordered to comply as well. Christian colleges could lose their accreditation, their student loan programs, their biblical hiring, firing, and application processes. “The evil consequences will be applied to all religious and reality-based institutions possible over the next generation — unless Americans refuse to comply with this obviously insane and destructive lie. Any backup from politicians half of us elect would help,” but, as Joy and I talked about on “Washington Watch,” most of them don’t have the spine to push back. Sure, there will be backlash to Biden’s orders, Joy said. But more than likely, Democrats will get away with it. Why? Because:
“Too many Americans are lazy cowards who point fingers about problems instead of doing what it takes to solve them, because solving problems is hard and whining on Facebook is easy. Too many Americans want a nice car, comfy house in the ‘right neighborhood,’ high school sports nostalgia, and frequent eating out more than they want to protect children from being mind-raped by sweetly smiling kindergarten teachers and gawked at by emotionally disturbed peers and teachers.”
This administration is going to do what Leftists do, which is use every single pressure point they can possibly find to advance their war on family, sex, and children to win more power. And unfortunately, Joy shook her head, Republicans — apart from Donald Trump, who showed unique courage on this issue — "failed to use their power to protect their constituents and do the right thing.“
So what can parents do? For starters, they can send a message by pulling their children out of public schools. Every time that happens, the public schools lose money. If you want to get the Left’s attention, that’s one way. Too many parents are sending their kids off to godless institutions that are undermining the values taught at home — and then wonder why their young adults are make a 180-degree turn from their faith. What do you expect when you put them in the care of a government system that’s hostile to everything you believe in? "It’s time for us to stop pretending that public schools aren’t as bad as they are.”
Also, Joy said, we need churches “to stand up and stop enabling the government to basically turn children into heathens using our tax dollars… Every church should become an institution of education. They could have co-ops or private schools. When America was founded, almost every single educational institution was directly descended from a church.” Moms and dads can’t fight the culture alone. They need grandparents, aunts, uncles, church communities, and other local organizations to come around them and make it financially possible for their kids to get a solid education, rooted in transcendent truth.
Putting aside all the “rot” in the public schools, Joy pointed out, the reality is, most children are getting a horrible education anyway. On core subjects, the government’s schools are woefully inadequate. “The bar has been lowered so much by public education, it doesn’t take parents much of an investment in time and energy to give their children an advantage over their peers in today’s culture.”
As Christians, we can’t outsource something as important as our children’s education. The race against Biden’s agenda has started. It’s time to take control now — before it’s too late.
Originally published here.
WaPo Pulls the Plug on Its Facts Machine
The Washington Post will have a lot more time on its hands now that Joe Biden has been sworn in. According to the paper’s spokesperson, they can call off their whole fact-checking operation. Apparently, it’s not necessary now that their preferred party is in office.
The Daily Caller’s Shelby Talcott reached out to the Post after it published its final tally of “lies or misleading statements by Donald Trump.” The newspaper’s alleged total? 30,573. (Of course, considering the media’s inability to trade in facts themselves, no one will ever know how many of those Pinocchios are real.)
Now, regardless of Biden’s own issues with the truth, the Post says it has “no plans” to keep a Biden database of falsehoods “at this time.” “The database of Trump claims was started a month after Trump became president as a way not to overwhelm our fact-checking enterprise,” the Post spokesperson said. Don’t worry, the paper insisted, we’ll still try to keep track of both parties’ statements.
But Biden, Talcott pointed out, has plenty of baggage when it comes to untruths. She pointed to a list of public embarrassments, dating as far back as 1987 when C-SPAN found footage of him lying about his graduating rank in law school. It was such a scandal that Biden had to drop out of the presidential race. Then there were the stories that no one would confirm about Biden being arrested in South Africa when he said he was trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison. The Washington Post’s own fact-checkers looked at that claim last year and called it “ridiculous.” Before that, the Post had called him out for an account he shared about his trip to Afghanistan. “In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony,” the Post insisted.
Now, when the stakes are highest, Biden gets a free pass? Does the Washington Post suddenly believe that facts are partisan? Ironically, this news about the fact-checkers broke on the same day as a new poll, showing that record numbers of Americans think the press is intentionally trying to deceive us. If you were one of the only people on earth still giving the media the benefit of the doubt, this should make it clear: the press has an agenda — and protecting Democratic leaders is one of them.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.