Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump insisted that the country should implement "patriotic education" as a way to calm nationwide protests and do away with "lies" about the country's pathological injustices. According to the president, protesters across the country are victims of "left-wing indoctrination" from schools and universities. 

While this tirade directly targeted his election challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, who he claims is a Trojan Horse for the "radical left," the president's remarks are more sinister and reflect a very dangerous political program. 

"Many young Americans have been fed lies about America being a wicked nation plagued by racism," Trump said on Monday, recommending that children be taught that America is "an exceptional, free and just nation, worth defending, preserving and protecting."

"The only path to unity is to rebuild a shared national identity focused on common American values and virtues of which we have plenty," he said. "This includes restoring patriotic education in our nation's schools, where they are trying to change everything that we have learned.”

America's education system is already extremely chauvinistic. Nearly all schools, with few exceptions, begin each morning with children saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" in front of the U.S. flag to literally pledge allegiance to the flag and "the Republic for which it stands."

The history of the country's founding, seen as a heroic tale of nation liberation from the vastly superior British Empire, is whitewashed in textbooks and the exact character of the "Founding Fathers" as wealthy slave owners is given but a passing mention. 

The darkest moments of the country's history – namely slavery and the genocide of the Native population to name but a few – are passed over in most schools with no serious exploration and are discussed as parts of the past already atoned for.

Issues of race have not been resolved – very far from it. The Native population, nearly exterminated through American history, still suffer horrifying health disparities attributed to inadequate access to basic infrastructure.

Black Americans face an enormous wealth gap directly attributed to racist policies in housing and other aspects of wealth building that continue to this day – well past the abolition of slavery, Jim Crow and Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s – and are being regularly slaughtered by police.

Other forms of bigotry have been fomented in the past and are only growing under the Trump administration, especially xenophobia. The Trump era has been a renaissance for white supremacy and right-wing terrorism, centered around xenophobia and racism, that primarily targets vulnerable groups.

On top of this, the U.S. has been at war for 226 out of 244 years since 1776 and has participated in well over 100 partisan electoral interventions – around one out of every nine ballot exercises since the end of the Second World War. 

This is not mentioned in basic education whatsoever and most Americans probably wouldn't even believe this fact if they heard it. 

America is indeed plagued by racism and is, one could rightly argue, "exceptional" only in its disregard for human life and dignity. To totally omit the historical and modern facts surrounding the extent of these injustices is not only morally devoid, but to impress this anti-intellectual chauvinism to the extent Trump would like, is legally questionable.

If it came down to it, however, Trump's right-wing stacked federal judiciary would probably defend his mandated "patriotic education," at least de facto if de jure proves too difficult. 

It's foreseeable that this could extend to public universities which would seriously upset the principles of a secular liberal education that teaches many of the uncomfortable truths the president and his supporters choose to ignore.

This is eerily similar to a film put out by the U.S. Department of War in 1943 to combat fascism titled "Don't Be A Sucker." The film depicts one man who, like Trump, shouts into a crowd by warning that "others" (minorities) are trying to harm society and so-called "Real Americans."

"In this country, we have no other people. We are American people," said one man in the film depicted as a Hungarian immigrant.

"We must judge each man as an individual and not by the color of his skin, or by his eyes, or by the length of his nose. And to remember that there is no master race. That is a scientific truth. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying," said another character playing a professor before being beaten up and dragged away by police. 

Instead of addressing America's contradictions, Trump is trying to put a muzzle on them by sending in federal troops to stamp out protests, foment vigilante-led violence against activists and uproot them entirely by suppressing the material facts that drive them.

He is promoting a very dangerous political program and those taking to the streets to protest against it are literally being killed by his most ardent supporters. This is not about universities lying to students about America – it's about the president trying to create a nation of suckers.

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