President Donald Trump is being widely condemned by critics for laying the foundation of his own version of the infamous "Hitler Jugend" (Hitler Youth) in an inflammatory speech calling for the creation of a "patriotic education" program in American schools and teaching a "pro-American curriculum."
Trump also said he wanted to establish a "patriotic education commission" to teach what he says is the pro-American version of American history. Trump, who is constantly being criticized for his racism, then announced the formation of this commission.
Trump made these contentious remarks at the White House Conference on American History. He said American children had undergone "decades of left-wing indoctrination," and he laid out plans for a "patriotic education" program as a remedy.
In announcing his intent to organize this commission, Trump also attacked The New York Times' "1619 Project," an initiative educating children about slavery in the United States.
"We're launching a new pro-American lesson plan for students called (the) 1776 Commission," he said. "We're going to teach our children the truth about America."
Trump assailed what he said was a "twisted web of lies" being taught in U.S. classrooms about systemic racism in America. He called this "a form of child abuse."
Trump critics blasted his proposals as laying the foundations for a patriotic indoctrination similar to that of Nazi Germany's "Hitler Youth." These teenagers devoted to Hitler also fought for the Third Reich as fighting men of the 12th SS Panzer Division "Hitler Jugend."
"Since people are (correctly) equating Trump's new executive order with Hitler's Youth, here is an interesting factoid," wrote American author and film producer, Tariq Nasheed. "Hitler's Youth was actually inspired by the Boy Scouts ... because the Boy Scouts was founded by white supremacist Robert Baden-Powell."
The 1619 Project is an ongoing project developed by The New York Times Magazine in 2019. It "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of (the United States') national narrative."
The number 1619 refers to the year 1619 when the first 30 Africans arrived in August at the British colony of Virginia in America to live out their lives in slavery to their white overlords. These 30 unfortunates, who came from Angola, were the first of hundreds of thousands of Africans the British bought as slaves from Muslim and Portuguese slave traders to work the farms in the Thirteen Colonies.
More than 310,000 Africans and other colored peoples were enslaved and forcibly transported to the Thirteen Colonies before these colonies won independence from Great Britain in 1776.
The 1619 Project was launched in August 2019 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in the 13 English colonies
Trump's proposal for patriotic education, however, might only be hot air and a political stunt. The U.S. federal government does not have jurisdiction over school curricula.
