Our Schools May Destroy Our Country

The most dangerous dimension of the right wing takeover of America is hiding in plain sight.

While illegal deportations, tariff idiocy, Hegseth incompetence, egg prices, ad infinitum . . .  dominate the headlines, the makeover of our education system is the most consequential threat we face.

I don’t mean the absurd attacks on higher education, although they are troubling. When (if) these storm clouds clear, Harvard and others will be just fine. In saner times, colleges and universities can quickly regain control of their own missions and destiny.

Primary and secondary education, not so much.

The impetus for this post is the case argued last week at the Supreme Court. Oklahoma has started an online Catholic school, directly funded by the state. You can visit the specifics of the case here.

Its essence is simple: Does a state-funded religious school violate the 1st Amendment’s prohibition on the government establishment of religion? During arguments, as might be expected, the liberal justices seemed to see it as a violation. Conservative justices, also true to form, found every possible kernel of nonsense to support the school. One specious argument, offered by Brett Kavanaugh, was that forbidding this direct support would be precedent to also forbid state funding of things like Catholic foster agencies. As if that is remotely similar.

The lawyers for the school cheerily noted that the school would be open to all faiths. I can just imagine the atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish and Muslim families queuing up for early admission. And it is important to note that LGBTQ+ students and faculty are not welcome at this or other “Christian” schools, although they will surely be prayed for.

Heretofore, the slippery slope toward Christian nationalism in education has been lubricated only indirectly by the contrivance of passing money for religious schools through parents’ hands, using the appealing mantras of school choice and parental rights. The Oklahoma case will open the floodgates, permitting states to directly fund explicitly religious schools. The slippery slope will become a torrent.

This is the long game: Grassroots indoctrination.

My atheism is a tolerant sort. I, as true for most reasonable constitutional scholars, recognize the 1st Amendment’s elegant balance. It provides for both the freedom of religion and the freedom from religion. I honor any person’s faith experience, however befuddling it seems to me. I’m sure I befuddle aplenty too. But my tolerance ends when any faith intrudes on the public sphere, demanding that our laws and our citizens abide by religious dogma.

The real threat is not the dogma. It’s the abiding.

While many faith communities express and act on salutary progressive values, that is not what the architects of this strategy intend. It is not fear-mongering to suggest that the current Trump retribution tour is a hint of what comes next. Diversity, equity and inclusion – gone. Any hint of gender and sexual identity – gone. Accurate teaching of American history will be replaced by a Christian-centered fairy tale of American Exceptionalism. Reproductive rights, birth control and gay rights will be further assaulted.

Even the lawyers for the Catholic school in question acknowledged that all parts of the curriculum will be filtered through a Catholic lens. That Catholic filtering is nearly benign when compared to the fundamentalist, anti-science, hate-mongering schools that will line up at the public trough when the floodgates open in every state.

It is not that every child in America will be saturated in fundamentalist prayer water. But as seen in the current era, the fate of a liberal democratic republic hangs in the margins. Trump’s victory was the result of several hundred thousand votes in a nation of 340 million. The Christo-fascists don’t need everyone. They just need enough to never lose again.

Like Trump himself, many of this strategy’s engineers don’t give a tinker’s damn about religious freedom – or religion. They know full well that red states, like Oklahoma, are champing at the bit to establish conservative religious schools on the public dime. For years, the charter and choice movements have yearned for the wholesale demolition of a secular public system. This decision may pave the way for the wrecking balls to roll in.

Even if many states dodge the wrecking ball, generations of earnest little anti-science, Bible-soaked, low information, white nationalist voters will be escorted through the education pipeline.

They will ensure the perpetuity of the kinds of legislatures that fund the kinds of schools that produce the little voters that ensure their perpetuity. It is a devoutly vicious circle.

This is what I fear most. And if SCOTUS rules as I predict, I don’t know that it can be stopped.