The slow erosion of democracy does not always come with a bang. Sometimes it comes disguised as children’s cartoons or a federal officer’s knock on the door.
The Trump administration continues to undermine the republic by attacking the principles on which this nation was founded. Consider PragerU, a YouTube channel masquerading as a university, now embraced by Trump’s allies as a replacement for PBS. What might seem like harmless animations for children are, in fact, insidious. In one so-called “lesson,” Christopher Columbus tells children, “Isn’t it better to be a slave than to be dead?” The students in the cartoon nod along. A throwaway line, perhaps—but one that strikes at the heart of America’s founding creed.
From the Revolutionary War cry of “Give me liberty, or give me death,” from Patrick Henry to New Hampshire’s official moto “Live Free or Die”—freedom has always been the soul of the American experiment. It was freedom, not comfort, that inspired colonists to fight the British Empire, and freedom that stirred William Wallace and the Scottish people against tyranny centuries earlier. Wallace was not even fighting slavery, he was fighting serfdom one step above slavery. To suggest otherwise—to teach children that slavery might be preferable to liberty—is to chip away at the foundation of Western democratic tradition.
This rewriting of history is not a side project. It is part of a broader campaign. Trump’s administration has repeatedly blurred the line between lawful government and authoritarian rule. Americans should recall reports of federal officers patrolling neighborhoods, confronting citizens gathered peacefully on their own porches, and justifying it as the president’s crackdown on “criminal elements.” These were not agitators in the street. They were people smoking, grilling, and enjoying their own property—told by agents of the federal government “don’t be smoking outside, don’t be drinking outside. Because Donald Trump is tired of it”. That is not law enforcement. It is tyranny in miniature, a preview of what unchecked power becomes. Why does a “billionaire” criminal president get to tell me or anyone else to stop doing what I legally can do on my own property?
The danger is not in the dramatic gestures but in the details. A skewed history lesson here, a federal overreach there. Each step may seem small, but together they drag the country further from its republican roots and closer to authoritarian control.
What PragerU proposes and what Trump enables is not education but indoctrination. It teaches children to submit, not to think. It replaces the courage of freedom with the complacency of servitude. And when a free people are taught to forget their history, they risk surrendering their future.
Americans must remember that democracy does not fall overnight. It is chipped away until one day, liberty is no longer the expectation but the exception. The United States was founded on the radical idea that freedom is worth the highest price. To abandon that truth, or to allow leaders to smother it, is to betray the very essence of our republic.
The question remains: Will we heed the warning now, while there is still time, or will we look back only when freedom itself has slipped away? Voice your concerns and disagreements on the policies that harm our country one step at a time. Dissent about a tyrannical government’s policies is the only way to hold up our democracy.
Editor’s note: Joseph McCain is the publisher of The Star-Herald. He has worked in the newspaper industry for over 30 years and may be reached at 662-803-5236 or 662-289-2251 or email news1@starherald.net.
