US executive order - Schools

The post is way back upthread but I agreed with @SporadicMincePieMuncher that some bits of this definitely come over as over-the-top rah rah patriotism, but that is honestly much more common on this side of the Atlantic (though maybe not as much as that EO suggests).

Executive Orders are related to federal entities. Where they conflict with a law encoded in different states they have no power. They only affect things directly controlled by the federal government and only then if the EO doesn't conflict with something already codified by Congress into a law. Some of Trump's EOs have already conflicted with the law - e.g. the firing of the inspectors general, which legally has to be done on a case by case basis through congress - and that will undoubtedly go through the courts though it may be that enough Republicans will develop spines and stand up to it (I doubt this).

Honestly, we should just say it. And insist that a History teacher is present just in case any of the other teachers need a little explanation of what that means. What the hell are they teaching children if they think compelled speech is ok?

I don't know if he's gone into more detail elsewhere, but there's definitely a thing with atheists converting to Catholicism - the standup comic Jen Fulwiler is a good example, and she's very open about her own experience - where they basically convert themselves. They're looking for some deeper meaning in their lives, and, maybe by accident, find something in Catholic doctrine or tradition that really resonates with them.

Reminds me of something Pope Benedict once said - he was a very accomplished theologian of course, but he said ultimately the only really compelling arguments the church had created for itself were the lives of the saints and the art the church had produced. It's an aesthetic choice as much as anything.

I feel that religion in the modern West is doomed to be a minority interest, but it's fascinating that where it does take root, it's people discovering it in a spontaneous grassroots way, and it's got very little to do with the institutional churches.

@OneAmberFinch I fully agree about Peter Thiel, and have found it interesting how he has stepped back out of the limelight. I fully expect him to storm back. But between him and Musk and Kevin Roberts and Trump himself, the Pharma fightback and a galaxy of tech billionaires of various political views it's all going to get a bit Godzilla Versus King Kong, and there will be many unforeseeable distractions.

Meanwhile a little sensible re-setting of things that were harming women, children, and society at large, is welcome

Yeah, I managed not to say that! And I haven’t found out - dc goes somewhere else!

I’m English and a lifelong socialist, though I haven’t voted Labour since they got on the trans bandwagon. They haven’t been left-wing for a long time, but they seemed the best of a bad lot until then.

I love the clear statements in these latest EOs. In all other areas I would probably oppose Trump.

The ‘love America’ stuff doesn’t bother me. Americans have always had this hand-on-heart patriotism that looks mainly harmless. I don’t like them invading other countries, but then I didn’t like Blair invading Iraq either.

Thanks for that, I think I had read that a while ago and forgotten about it. I think he skims over some of the sources for his conversion though - he talks mostly about why the ideas started to appeal to him, and why he found them valuable in his family life etc. But less about where they came from, which is from that kind of post-liberal, ironic-reactionary online intellectual right. One that moved on from Slate Star Codex & co but was still influenced by that way of thinking and debating online.

I think it's a movement that started looking for an institution that represented the post-liberal values they were starting to reach for (let's say 5/10 years ago) and latched onto Catholicism as being the closest match. It's just my theory, but I think this is why a lot of the "New Right" or whatever you want to call them will sometimes, say, quote scripture in slightly oblique ways that are different from how passages are usually understood - because they're retrofitting the ideas into a new worldview.

I do find it interesting that he talks about moving beyond "just seeking achievements to fit in with the elites" and then talks about how he decided to read Rene Girard to impress Peter Thiel! or if not him directly, then certainly his peers in that very active online milieu. Because as we all know, that's the group that is doing quite a good job of seizing power in the US - if that's not the new elites then I don't know who is.

Sorry - apologies for the diversion! I find it interesting that there's not more interest/scrutiny in him, likewise there's much more chatter about Elon Musk when I think Peter Thiel is more quietly influential...

Did they call them 'struggle sessions'? Fucks sake.

Detention with an extra spoonful of shame then…

Honestly I think it's better the EO covers both. It's the same top down, authoritarian mindset of 'we know best' and developmentally inappropriate political propagandising towards children (dressed up as fact) at the same time as adultification. I don't think you can address one without the other. They're not the same and there is nuance but they are linked by the failures to safeguard children and put their needs first and have due regard to what is known about child wellbeing and development.

@SionnachRuadh "It even informs traditonal American left wing thought. Someone like Noam Chomsky is mostly criticising the country for not living up to its ideals. The anti-patriotism of the current left is a much more recent thing, and really a graduate elite thing."
Yes, thanks for this - you've reminded me of how strange I found Bowling For Columbine back in the day, Moore's patriotism made me cringe.
@OneAmberFinch you can read Vance on his conversion here,
https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/how-i-joined-the-resistance

I'm not USAian, but this is my impression too. Whenever I visit (various states, both Red and Blue), I'm always struck by the number of US flags waving everywhere, on ordinary houses too and not just for special occasions. And they say the pledge every week in school, that sort of thing?

From a British self-deprecating don't-make-a-fuss perspective, it seems a bit cringe. But that is their culture and it is not, in itself, creepy or wrong.

‘I think those who are uneasy about the patriotism in the EO don't really understand US culture. People in the UK often make the mistake of thinking, because we share a language, we're basically the same. It's not true. Americans (in my experience, and I've lived there) feel no shame at all about being patriotic and openly so. It's seen as an obvious virtue.’

Absolutely

I think those who are uneasy about the patriotism in the EO don't really understand US culture. People in the UK often make the mistake of thinking, because we share a language, we're basically the same. It's not true. Americans (in my experience, and I've lived there) feel no shame at all about being patriotic and openly so. It's seen as an obvious virtue.

I don't really understand what's so wrong about patriotism and standing up for the values your country was built upon? Why's it supposed to be bad?

Well, I don't know about that, but I don't think he came to it via any kind of USCCB messaging.

If there are any converts these days, it's usually through unofficial channels.

My understanding was that he came to Catholicism via that sort of online-right revival of it, right?

American patriotism may be cringe for Brits, but it really does have to be put in that context of the national myth - the nation of immigrants that was founded on high ideals, and maybe it's never quite reached those ideals but is always striving towards them.

It even informs traditonal American left wing thought. Someone like Noam Chomsky is mostly criticising the country for not living up to its ideals. The anti-patriotism of the current left is a much more recent thing, and really a graduate elite thing.

It's really interesting to me that, if you believe the exit polls from last November, the single Trumpiest ethnic group is Native Americans. I don't find that surprising. They're a blue collar demographic that's heavily based in unfashionable places and manual occupations that are subject to competition from immigrant labour. They don't have a graduate elite, which has to explain why so many Indigenous Studies professors turn out to be white people faking it.

There's one Native American in the Senate. That's Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. Unlike most senators, he's not a lawyer or professor or financier, he's someone who made his money in the family plumbing business. He's a huge Trump guy. I know he's a sample of one, but he talks about the Native American experience of racism and about not wanting race essentialism taught to small kids in school.

CRT might be a useful theory in certain academic contexts. But I think it's discredited itself by a dumbed down version of CRT being taught in schools, and then the teaching unions denying that they're teaching CRT at all.

I'd have guessed Lisburn/Castlereagh myself. I'm probably distantly related to him if I could trace back far enough.

It's interesting to me that he's a Catholic convert, which I have to think is unusual for someone with an Appalachian Scots-Irish background, and his thinking draws on Catholic social teaching.

Mind you, lots of my American relatives ended up Catholic, but by a different route. They were a later group of emigrants who for some peculiar reason married heavily into the Sicilian community. I've read that Italian Americans didn't get on with the Irish, who controlled the church hierarchy, and the two communities definitely didn't intermarry until relatively recently, but Sicilians and Irish Protestants seem to have found each other acceptable.

Which just goes to show that ethnicity in America is complicated.

I'm reading Kara Dansky's book, 'The Reckoning - How the Democrats and the Left betrayed Women and Girls' at the moment, and the section on schools has left me reeling. I'd thought of myself reasonably well clued up but I had no idea of how deep this runs in US schools. My head is spinning. I can only imagine this taking years to sort out.

I've read everyone's responses and I appreciate them but by linking the issue with CRT I fear they have increased the likelihood of legal challenges which, even if they don't succeed, will surely delay implementation - and given that the Democrats appear set on doubling down, that does not bode well.

Agree.

Progressive politics in schools is generally hugely age inappropriate to the point of being damaging to developing children. They can't cope with the concepts and it's political, not neutral, not in their best interests. It also often goes hand in hand with adultification and attempts at parental alienation which are both safeguarding issues.

What is happening to schools in America is absolutely nothing to celebrate.

Exactly what I thought on reading this. I am all for biological reality but this statement is not something to cause anything but concern.
Trump is quite happy to push his own ideology and is the master of stoking division.
I am also still reeling from reading his latest mad theory that today’s awful plane crash was caused by diversity hiring in air traffic control meaning that people with “severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” were employed.
How can anybody not see that no matter what he changes as regards men in frocks not being women, protecting safe spaces, stopping children being “transed” there is a much bigger and much worse agenda behind this.
We all know how he really feels about women. He wants to grab us by the pussy.
This faux standing up for women is like a pedophile luring in victims by promising them puppies and sweeties.
I also think Trump is beyond whether you are right or left leaning. He is in a sub class all of his own.

@Wemaybebetterstrangers but powerful people saying it all out loud is such a shocking, public step that no one can avoid it. It’s like the emperor’s new clothes, someone has actually dared to say it. (Never mind the many, many women who have been fighting back and shouting into the void for years now.)

It's also, frankly, a controversial lens. Lots and lots of parents in the US don't prefer the lens of oppressor/victim, and that doesn't mean they don't believe there are plenty of instances of historical exploitation.

Schools shouldn't be treating socially controversial theory as if it's uncontroversial.