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Does this list contain anyone with a PhD in US History? I don't recognize anyone on the list with those qualifications. One needn't have a PHD to have expertise, but you'd think they'd want at least one or two such people involved.
Some of "questions for students to discuss" at the end are the most ridiculous, leading questions you could imagine...that lead students right down the path toward becoming good Josh Hawley voters.
This is the source, released today, MLK day, as @TheTattooedProf has pointed out. This is not a coincidence I'm sure. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/The-Presidents-Advisory-1776-Commission-Final-Report.pdf
To break it down. The subtext of this question (& the implied correct answer) is that any economic legislation that AOC or Warren might propose will simply be struck down as unconstitutional, and that's right & good. So Dems must first change the Constitution to pass laws.
In fact, the New Deal is probably unconstitutional as these folks see it. So in an ideal world, that whole apparatus should just be chucked. Here's a thread on that aspect of conservative political culture. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1017083607158906880?s=20
This is asking students to rehearse the good old "wE'rE a RePubLiC nOt a dEmoCrAcy" talking point pioneered by the John Birch Society.
And this one is another anti-democratic question, asking students to assert that just because voters say something is a right (i.e. abortion), that does not mean that it actually is if God (i.e., your idea about what God wants) says it's wrong.
Here's a thread on the person who chaired that commission. They are one of the more influential right wing ideologues who you've never heard of. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1339606749775425536?s=20
This is the whole ballgame right here, BTW. Conservative politics since the 60s has been all about repealing the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, etc. This is the culture war form of politics that the GOP mastered in the Reagan era.
Don't even get me started on the irony that the musical score to every Trump rally is the greatest hits of the dope-smoking, sex-having, God-doubting, man-giving-the-finger-to 1960s.
Anyway, that whole 1776 Project fiasco makes much more sense if you regard it as the pseudo-historical justification for the 1776 Project that right wing insurgents enacted on Jan 6 to anoint their chosen one King against the will of the voters.
The 1776 Project also makes more sense if you read it in this Alex Jones voice.
To return, in a slightly less jovial tone, this here is basically the groundless, far right "Cultural Marxism" take on why American culture and higher ed have supposedly gone off the rails. It's a dog whistled antisemitic argument that originated with a Lyndon LaRouche acolyte.
A longer thread on the BS "cultural marxism" schtick that is not just a far right thing, but is even taken seriously by folks like Andrew Sullivan and David Brooks. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1095519731132465152?s=20
Imagine making the argument that John C. Calhoun is the intellectual father of Critical Race Theory and not having your cranium just implode from the force of the vacuum.
Their source for their claim about religion and the American Revolution is that noted scholar [checks notes] Calvin Coolidge?
![Their source for their claim about religion and the American Revolution is that noted scholar [checks notes] Calvin Coolidge?](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EsDrEYLUcAI53po.jpg "Their source for their claim about religion and the American Revolution is that noted scholar [checks notes] Calvin Coolidge?")
Yes, religion was a key dimension of the American Revolution. Also, Thomas Jefferson created his own version of the Bible with all of the "magic" stuff cut out, and Thomas Paine thought organized religion was basically bunkum that powerful people used to keep the poor in line.
So as with most things, it's a little more complicated than a quote from silent Cal.
Tho it's fitting that this patriotic indoctrination text cites Cal, given that in 1921 he published an essay decrying the various thought crimes that threatened to destroy the minds of American students and which must be uprooted. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1229919463727755265?s=20
Conservatives in the early 1920s were very concerned about children being taught incorrectly. This Oregon law calling for patriotic textbooks in 1922 has a vaguely familiar ring to it. https://twitter.com/SethCotlar/status/1302835067048214528?s=20
