For a very brief time, Americans once understood just how evil statist ideologies are, no matter the names under which they existed—Marxism, fascism, socialism, communism, Maoism, etc. Decades of leftism have made us forget that. Central Europe hasn’t, something reflected in a new law in the Czech Republic. We in America, blessed with a First Amendment, cannot replicate the Czech law, but Donald Trump, in the first week of his administration, may have done something even better.
In the Czech Republic, the citizens didn’t just study the gauzy wonders of hypothetical communism in an Ivy League classroom. Instead, they lived under its jackboot for decades, so they understand that statism is slavery. It’s cruel, ugly, and soul-destroying. It’s an ideology that led to the deaths of approximately 100 million people in the 20th century in Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. So, last week, Czech President Petr Pavel signed a law making it a criminal offense to promote communism, just as it is a criminal offense to promote its sister socialist ideology, Naziisim.
Image by ChatGPT.
Here in America, of course, free speech principles prevent us from passing a similar law. Nevertheless, we know that, here in America, each of these statist ideologies has as its primary goal destroying the very liberties the Constitution exists to protect. We also know that our educational institutions have done yeoman’s work to convince America’s young people that communism is cool.
That’s why various polls show between 50-70% of young Americans viewing socialism positively. So, yay Mamdani!
Thankfully, Donald Trump got elected in November 2024, and while he’s been busy saving the economy, closing the border, deporting illegal aliens, ending Iran’s nuclear ambitions, attacking antisemitism in academia, fighting trade wars, reinstating biological reality, and doing all sorts of other awesome things in just six months, he also spared some time for trying to undo the madness of communism worship in American education.
Reading about what happened last week in the Czech Republic made me grateful that, as one of his first acts in office, Trump signed Executive Order 14190. That order explains that, “In recent years, however, parents have witnessed schools indoctrinate their children in radical, anti-American ideologies while deliberately blocking parental oversight.” The gist of the order is to stand against teaching that America is a racist, sexist country and that biological reality doesn’t exist. However, it also affirmatively demands that, moving forward, the Department of Education must actually do something useful, which is to develop a 1776 Commission to teach children about patriotic principles: That is, about liberty.
We may not be able to ban communist propaganda as the Czech Republic did, but President Trump has made it possible for us to teach our children once again to love their country.