We Americans have a famously short memory; we “forget” news items that are barely two days old. Think you’re immune to that? Are you sure? Try this: do you remember that President Donald Trump suffered two assassination attempts in the summer of 2024? Sure, you might be saying, “of course I remember that,” but that question prompted you. In the immediate aftermath of the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, people online were widely remarking how it “felt” like the attempted murder had happened “a long time ago” when it had only been a few days.
It seems likely that this is because the 24-hour media/news cycle—which itself is fairly recent, having only become “a thing” in the 1980s with the advent of cable news networks—runs so rapidly now that major events become “not news” in mere hours. We’re so pegged to what we see on our screens that it’s not out of bounds to question if our capacity for memory using our brains has been degraded.
Given that, it’s probably a heavy lift to ask even older readers to remember this: The federal Department of Education was only created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter. Did you know that? Had you forgotten? It’s true. If you were born in 1950, you spent all your school years in a world that had never heard of a federal “department of education.” Somehow, you learned the three Rs, didn’t you? Somehow, American children managed to get an education without a building in D.C. directing how it was provided.
This “forgetting” is probably part of why so many people have reacted negatively to Trump’s pondering whether to abolish the Dept. of Education. They think, incorrectly, that it’s a fundamental institution that has been there since the beginning of time. But not only is it fairly new, it’s made an absolute hash out of American public education. Mandate after mandate from D.C. has been handed down to local schools forcing them to let boys play on girls’ sports teams, reversing the purpose of Title IX. So called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) directives from Washington have forced local public schools to foist Marxist race-baiting on students, crowding out basic literacy and math skills.
Well, the times they are a’changing. For now, there’s still a Department of Education. But thanks to a recent executive order from Trump, there is no more DEI. Here’s the Department alerting the public that it’s flushing this woke poison down the drain.
Here’s an overview of the online reaction.
“Dana” doesn’t seem to understand that states can take over what the federal government has kept to itself; she falsely believes that this means colleges will close.
Most users are happy with the news.
“Dominus” raises a good point. Will the exiled bureaucrats just find some other way to exercise their ugly craft?
Several X users have made. . . risqué jokes about their level of excitement around this development. The following is tame.
