Don’t say [list too long to include]

Princeton historian Tera W. Hunter in The Nation:

When I was growing up, my Florida high school required me to endure a course called “Americanism vs. Communism.” I was hardly alone. Between 1962 and 1991, Florida mandated the class for all high school juniors or seniors in public schools. Each lesson had the same takeaway: “Americanism” was all good and “Communism” all bad.

No doubt an offspring of the House Unamerican Activities Committee. You’d think activities should be evaluated on their merits, right, not their location? It’s just dumb to label activities un-Swedish or un-Egyptian or un-Chinese or un-American. America has lots of activities, most of which it shares with other countries or land-masses – speaking of which, by Un-American activities do they mean un-United States activities on Un-American Continent activities? Either way there are lots of activities, and the same goes for all the other countries (let alone continents) on the planet.

“Americanism” v Communism is a jumble. Communism is a political and economic ideology, while “Americanism” is…what? Whatever US conservatives currently approve of, basically.

The concept of “Americanism” dates to the colonial era. It’s meant to identify the nation’s distinctive historical origins and democratic political idioms. Individuals and groups across the political spectrum have marshaled it for varying purposes, including an inclusive vision of citizenship, but also racist anti-immigrant campaigns during the 1920s . Its capaciousness shrank considerably during the Cold War as political conservatives used it to buttress exclusive ends. The rise of the Soviet Union and the fear of totalitarianism it provoked was an existential crisis that could only be neutered, they believed, with a contrast nationalist creed: Americanism.

Of course, Soviet communism was all mixed up with nationalism too, so waving the “Americanism” flag was perhaps not a total change of subject.

Concerned that high school students were vulnerable to a Soviet plot to control the world, the state of Florida designed the course to ensure no teenager be tempted by communism. It defined Americanism as: “the recognition of the truth that the inherent and fundamental rights of man are derived from God and not from governments, societies, dictators, kings or majorities.”

Uh…wrong. Not from god either. It’s true that the point of human rights is that they don’t [can’t, mustn’t] depend on government or majorities and the like – that the first step in protecting them is framing them as inherent in human beings rather than dependent on outside forces and thus vulnerable. They’re vulnerable anyway, but the idea of the inherent nature of them is a necessary starting point. “God” is just human beliefs dressed up in robes and a crown, no better than your local corrupt mayor driving a Lamborghini.

An all-white, mostly male advisory committee consisting of educators, legislators, and private citizens representing the Florida Bar Committee, Florida Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the American Legion designed the course starting in fall 1961.

What could possibly go wrong?

Reports from the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover’s, Masters of DeceitThe Story of Communism in American and How to Fight it (1958), were prominently featured. Hoover also famously provided consultation and endorsed the course.

Awesome. From frying pan to fire in a single jump.

The Florida legislature formed a committee in the 1950s like the one Senator Joseph McCarthy led in Congress to annihilate “un-American” activities it labeled as communist. The Johns Committee, as it was known, first attacked Black Americans for supporting civil rights and then moved on to target lesbian and gay faculty in the early 1960s at the University of Florida, University of South Florida, and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (a historically Black college), which led to firings and forced resignations. If DeSantis is confused about the relevance of Queer theory to African American studies, this is a case book example of the Lavender Scare and the Red Scare intersecting to destroy presumed enemies of the state.

That’s interesting.

DeSantis is openly flaunting the resuscitation of a decades-old playbook. His “stop woke” indoctrination of school children and his attacks on the free speech and academic freedom of teachers and college professors are sustained through a bevy of restrictive policies. The governor signed a law last year that requires teachers instruct students about the “Victims of Communism,” which echoes the objectives of the course that I had to take. He supported the state’s designation of a new civics and government curriculum falsely claiming that the founding fathers did not believe in a strict separation of church and state.

So it’s not about the actual “Founding Fathers” but the imaginary ones who would have been DeSantis if only they’d known how.

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