Inbox: Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) introduced the Saving American History Act of 2020, a bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts.
— Niels Lesniewski (@nielslesniewski) July 23, 2020
Could this be true? The man forever yammering about the #cancelculture and how the libs want to suppress free speech?
Tom Cotton?
Of course it’s true. Cotton only wants the “wrong” kind of speech suppressed. Not his.
The NYT’s 1619 Project is a racially divisive, revisionist account of history that denies the noble principles of freedom & equality on which our nation was founded.
Federal funding shouldn’t help indoctrinate young Americans w/ this left-wing garbage.
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) July 23, 2020
Should an education free of Tom Cotton’s interest you, here’s the project to which Cotton objects. It makes the case that the introduction of slavery to the U.S. in 1619 has touched every aspect of the country’s development and black people should be in the center of the “national narrative.” Timely case in point: Just yesterday, three of his Arkansas colleagues refused to remove memorials to slavery defenders from the Capitol. Cotton might also get a chance to vote to preserve white supremacist monuments before long, though the Republican leader will likely block a vote.
This is meaningless (it won’t pass the House and probably not even the Senate) base-rousing political demagoguery. Donald Trump is going all racist all the time to win re-election. In some places (Arkansas, sigh) it’s a strategy with proven appeal.