Trump pushes cultural issues, alleges ‘left-wing indoctrination’ in schools
MOSINEE, Wis. — President Donald Trump stepped up his rhetoric Thursday on cultural issues, aiming to boost enthusiasm among rural Wisconsin voters as he tries to repeat his path to victory four years ago.
Making his fifth visit to the pivotal battleground state this year, Trump held a rally Thursday evening in Mosinee, in central Wisconsin, an area of the state that shifted dramatically toward Republicans in 2016, enabling Trump to overcome even greater deficits in urban and suburban parts of the state.
Trump has increasingly used his public appearances to elevate cultural issues. In Mosinee, he called for a statute to ban burning the American flag in protest — a freedom protected by the Supreme Court — and criticized sports players and leagues for allowing demonstrations against racial inequality.
“We have enough politics, right,” he said. He added of protests in sports, “People don’t want to see it and the ratings are down.”
Earlier Thursday, in a speech at the National Archives to commemorate Constitution Day, he pressed his case that U.S. schools are indoctrinating children with a left-wing agenda hostile to the nation’s Founding Fathers and characterized demonstrations against racial injustice as “left-wing rioting and mayhem” that “are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long.”
Trump said he would create a national commission to promote a “pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history,” which he said would encourage educators to teach students about the “miracle of American history.”
Trump is calling the panel the “1776 Commission,” in what appeared to be a barb at the New York Times’s 1619 Project. The project, whose creator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, won a Pulitzer for its lead essay, is a collection of articles and essays that argue that the nation’s true founding year is 1619, the year enslaved Africans were brought to the shores of what would become the United States. Trump said Thursday the 1619 Project wrongly teaches that the United States was founded on principles of “oppression, not freedom.”
“Patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country,” he said. “American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at work or the repression of traditional faith, culture and values in the public square. Not anymore.”
In response to Trump’s remarks, Hannah-Jones said the First Amendment to the Constitution abhors government attempts to censor speech and guarantees a free press.
“The efforts by the president of the United States to use his powers to censor a work of American journalism by dictating what schools can and cannot teach and what American children should and should not learn should be deeply alarming to all Americans who value free speech,” she said.
Trump’s last visit to Wisconsin came on Sept. 1, when he met with law enforcement and toured damage from protests in Kenosha that turned violent after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man hit seven times in the back during an attempted arrest. Trump has sought to use the unrest to tout a “law and order” message and to paint an apocalyptic vision of violence if Democrat Joe Biden wins on Nov. 3.
“I saved the suburbs,” Trump said Thursday of his call for federal law enforcement and National Guard troops to confront protesters. He added that police “did a great job in Kenosha.”
Trump’s path to 270 Electoral College votes may well hinge on Wisconsin, and his campaign is investing tens of millions of dollars on advertising and get-outthe-vote efforts in the state.
At the rally, Trump also previewed aid to the region’s farmers, saying $13 billion would begin flowing “starting next week” to help farmers, though he provided no additional details.
And he took a victory lap two days after he presided over Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates recognizing Israel in a White House ceremony.
“I got nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. That’s a big deal,” Trump said, adding, “I should’ve gotten nominated seven times.” His supporters chanted “Nobel Peace Prize” in response.