Robert Reich argues that Trump’s attacks on history, education, science, journalism, and the arts follow one strategy: weaken people’s ability to question power and make them easier to control.
- Rewrite history to make today’s authority harder to challenge.
Erasing past injustices, and the movements that overcame them, discourages people from demanding change now.
Example: Reich points to efforts to whitewash slavery and segregation and erase Native American suffering and LGBTQ rights struggles. - Replace independent thinking with political loyalty.
Reich argues that weakening education while controlling what schools teach shifts their purpose from developing judgment to demanding allegiance.
Example: He cites efforts to dismantle the Department of Education, cut school funding, and influence university admissions, faculty hiring, and curricula. - Weaken science because evidence can contradict the leader.
Independent research establishes facts that political authority cannot simply decree away. Undermining it also carries practical costs for everyone.
Example: Reich cites frozen university research grants and attacks on scientific agencies that threaten progress against cancer, Alzheimer’s, and HIV. - Pressure the press to control what the public can know.
Journalism enables citizens to scrutinize authority; intimidating news organizations weakens that accountability.
Example: He points to lawsuits against ABC and CBS, broadcast-license threats, and efforts to defund PBS and NPR. - Control the arts to narrow expression and silence dissent.
Art encourages people to question assumptions, understand others, and imagine alternatives, all of which can challenge concentrated power.
Example: Reich cites canceled arts grants, intervention in Smithsonian content, and Trump’s installation as Kennedy Center chair. - The combined effect is a public less equipped to govern itself.
Reich’s central warning is that these actions reinforce one another: less knowledge, fewer independent voices, and less empathy make division through fear easier.
Example: A public denied the history of successful protest, and institutions that explain or challenge present policies, has fewer tools to recognize and resist abuses.