Trump's alternate reality becomes republican curriculum
From debunked election claims to Covid lab theories, Oklahoma's new curriculum enshrines Trump-era conspiracy as fact for high school students.
US President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. Picture: AFP
Sometimes things are so obviously insane that writing about them seems ridiculous.
That is why I don't write much about the lunacy of the Trump presidency any more. Keeping up with the crazy demands a psychology journal, not a 400-word newspaper column.
Then something else mad happens and I fact-check it yet again. And it turns out you just can't make this stuff up.
Meme culture
I'm not talking about the US president posting an image of himself as the new pope, though he did.
He isn't even Catholic, the minimum requirement, yet not being qualified or knowledgeable or correct doesn't matter in the current US administration.
Nor am I referring to the May the Fourth (be with you) pic of Trump in muscled Star Wars mode, posted by the White House with the call-out to 'Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting so hard to bring Sith Lords, murderers, druglords, dangerous prisoners and well-known MS-13 gang members back into our Galaxy'.
Nor am I talking about the bizarre e-mail sent by the US embassy in Sweden to the Stockholm city planning department, demanding they agree to comply with Trump's anti-diversity, inclusion and equality policies. (For the record, the city planners binned it.)
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Propaganda in the Classroom
Instead, I'm talking about something quietly contained in the latest academic standards in Republican Oklahoma, coming soon to high school social studies classes. The students will study '21st century turning points' and must 'analyse the significant events during the first Donald J Trump administration'.
These include 'identifying discrepancies in 2020 election results by looking at … the sudden halting of ballot-counting … the security risks of mail-in balloting, sudden batch dumps, an unforeseen record number of voters, and the unprecedented contradiction of 'bellwether county' trends.
All debunked, all now part of the curriculum. Students must also 'identify the source of the Covid pandemic from a Chinese lab'.
The answer, presumably, is 'from a Chinese lab.'
I know I'll change no minds.
I know pointing out what is blatantly obvious – that the West's puppet master is a narcissist with the attention span of a Chappies-wrapper goldfish until there's a score to settle and that his acolytes are causing untold damage now and in future – only entrenches positions more.
But, fittingly, Trump's lightsaber was red.
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