Fascist movements have always made schools, teachers, and colleges a primary target. Because when they can be controlled, an entire generation learns to support the fascist movement. Josef Stalin, one of the world’s most successful fascists (for a while), said “Give me just one generation of youth, and I’ll transform the whole world.” He revised books, altered photographs to remove pictures of competitors, and sent writers to prison camps if their writing disagreed with government-approved political rhetoric.

Trump, DeSantis, and the Republican National Committee are doing exactly that, right now, right out in the open, under the guise of “protecting” our youth from ideas that don’t conform to Republican-approved dogma. Now, teachers are hiding their books, self-censoring themselves in class, and outright quitting their jobs for fear for displeasing their political rulers.

This situation is nothing less than shocking, especially in America. Our children are being indoctrinated with right-wing propaganda. They are being taught that authoritarian government is “proper,” and that what you and I know as democratic ideals are the same as communism. What they don’t know—unless we tell them somehow—is their minds are being programmed using Stalinism. And that path leads, sooner or later, to strong-man, totalitarian dictatorship, and to freedom lost.