But it's also true that large numbers of Americans, equipped with moxie and public education, overcame class and race barriers to be leaders in business, public service, medicine, science and politics. That's an ideal too often honored in the breach, as Ivy League schools are still way over-dominated by the children of privilege. At its most basic, the promise of public education is one where anyone who is smart and works hard can get ahead in society, by getting good grades and gaining entrance to a good university. Schools are also a major threat to the anti-egalitarian politics of the right. They more easily believe fascistic propaganda and don't have access to the critical thinking skills that can undermine the arguments that authoritarian leaders make. As I've written about before, ignorant people are flat-out easier to subject to authoritarian rule. There's some truth to the saying that "knowledge is power." That is precisely why the activist right doesn't want the general public to be equipped with knowledge.
Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only. Salon's Kathryn Joyce, for instance, has been reporting on the growing movement in elite right-wing circles to destroy public education as we know it so that it can be replaced with right-wing propaganda and/or no education at all for lower-income Americans who can't afford to pay for private services. To journalists who have been closely observing the world of right-wing activism and think tanks, this escalation of anti-education rhetoric is no surprise. Lisa Kennedy, a host for the daytime program "Outnumbered," tossed the idea out in April, calling now a "great time in our country's history where we rethink whether or not we have public schools," and suggesting "we should not have the government involved in education at all." RELATED: Right's new social studies plan vows to fight CRT, wokeness and the "overthrow of America" This is not the first time that Fox News has seeded the idea of shutting down public education entirely. "A lot of people are saying it's time to defund government education or at least defund it by giving vouchers to parents so they can say, 'No, we're not doing this anymore,'" ranted host Laura Ingraham on Thursday. Having implanted the idea that public schools are a scary place turning their grandkids into self-loathing sexual perverts, the end game was finally rolled out during the popular primetime program "The Ingraham Angle": It's time to end public education entirely. First, the network ran endless segments hyping the myth that school teachers were training kindergarteners to hate white people with something called "critical race theory." Next came false claims that schools that accept LGBTQ teachers and students were "grooming" children to be sexually abused by pedophiles. Anyone familiar with how Fox News gradually warms its audience up to an idea could see it coming.
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