Toward Fascism

 In his famous 1995 essay delineating the signposts of fascism, philosopher and linguist Umberto Eco singled out the authoritarian's loathing of learning as a critical indicator that what you're dealing with is not just garden variety conservatism, but outright fascism. "The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity," to the fascist, and "[t]hinking is a form of emasculation." Therefore, Eco argued, "Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism."

So really, it's no surprise that the Republican Party — which has never been a friend of schools — has dramatically escalated its war on education on its march to becoming a fully fascist institution. Most of this is done under the guise of fighting "critical race theory. It's a real term in academia, but in GOP hands, "critical race theory" amounts to a conspiracy theory used to scare white people into supporting a full-blown assault on the teaching of history or literature in public schools. But with the early success of this tactic, particularly in the Virginia gubernatorial race, Republicans are feeling empowered to dramatically broaden their assault on all forms of education, from pre-K to the university level.

Most of these attacks use race-baiting to stir up emotions and bamboozle people about what is, ultimately, an anti-education agenda. But not always. For instance, as the Washington Post reported Tuesday, Republicans are already working on a plan to do whatever it is they can to kneecap President Joe Biden's plan to make pre-K available to all American children. Modeled on the strategy for depriving eligible people of Medicaid, the idea would be for red state governments to simply reject free federal funds that would expand pre-K programs to all 3- and 4-year-old children. 

Decades of research shows that pre-K is hugely beneficial to educational development, helping kids not just with early education but also leading to higher rates of high school and college graduation. Of course, in the eyes of authoritarians, that is the argument against pre-K. Children learning skills like literacy, reasoning, and even skepticism? All that cuts against the social control goals of fascists. Unsurprisingly, then, efforts to bamboozle parents into backing an anti-education movement are starting to expand beyond conspiracy theories about "critical race theory."

Amanda Marcotte in Salon.com

The movement to Fascism is in full throttle in this country.