Trump's Education Secretary Fails Basic History Questions While Deciding What's Illegal to Teach in Schools
This is the woman deciding what history is too "woke" for your children
Education Secretary Linda McMahon testified this past week that she'd "look into" who Ruby Bridges is and what the Tulsa Race Massacre was. She also couldn't correct a senator who claimed $1.5 billion times 10 equals $1 trillion.
The woman who once called artificial intelligence "A1" (yes, like the steak sauce) in front of the U.S. Senate sat before Congress again this week, tasked with defending a budget for a department she's been ordered to destroy. McMahon’s testimony exposed the deliberate ignorance driving America's latest assault on historical truth.
When asked if teaching about Ruby Bridges would constitute "illegal DEI," McMahon said she'd "look into it more." Ruby Bridges, the six-year-old who walked past screaming mobs to integrate an all-white school in 1960, is depicted in one of America's most famous paintings, hanging in the White House. The woman in charge of American education doesn't know who she is, but she's going to decide what's too dangerous for your kids to learn.
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McMahon's Knowledge Gaps Follow a Pattern
McMahon's testimony revealed a very intentional ignorance. She doesn't know about the Tulsa Race Massacre, where white mobs destroyed one of America's most prosperous Black communities in 1921, killing hundreds and leaving thousands homeless. She's unfamiliar with Ruby Bridges, whose integration of William Frantz Elementary School required federal marshals because adults were threatening to poison a first-grader. But she's crystal clear on determining what constitutes "illegal DEI" in schools.
This selective ignorance follows a deliberate pattern. The same administration that's freezing mental health funding for schools while claiming it's tainted by "toxic DEI ideology" somehow can't identify the most basic landmarks of American civil rights history. They know exactly what they want to remove from classrooms, they just don't know what they're removing.
It's the educational equivalent of book burning by people who never learned to read.
The mathematics of McMahon's testimony were equally damning. When Senator John Kennedy incorrectly calculated that $1.5 billion annually equals "more than $1 trillion over 10 years," McMahon sat silently. It took Senator Jack Reed to point out that $1.5 billion times 10 actually equals $15 billion, not $1 trillion. McMahon's response? "OK." The woman making budget decisions for American education can't catch a basic multiplication error.
The History of Educational Revisionism in America
America has long shown a documented pattern of historical revisionism. After Reconstruction, white supremacists launched the "Lost Cause" narrative, reframing the Civil War as a noble fight for states' rights. They rewrote textbooks, erected Confederate monuments, and taught generations of children that enslaved people were happy and the KKK were heroes.
The strategy worked. By the 1950s, most American textbooks barely mentioned slavery as a cause of the Civil War. Ruby Bridges integrated schools while most white children were learning sanitized fairy tales about benevolent plantation owners and contented enslaved people.
Now we're witnessing Lost Cause 2.0., with evolved terminology. "Critical race theory" and "DEI" have replaced "mongrelization" and "race mixing," but the goal remains the same: controlling historical memory to preserve existing power structures.
Trump's 1776 Commission, released just days after the January 6 insurrection, explicitly positioned itself as a "rebuttal" to the 1619 Project's examination of slavery's ongoing impact. The commission's report dismissed slavery as merely "contradictory" to American ideals, framed abolitionists as divisive, and suggested that progressivism poses the same threat to America as fascism.
McMahon's confirmation hearing further revealed that this is institutional capture by people who genuinely don't know the history they're rewriting.
How McMahon's Ignorance Shapes Policy
What makes this moment particularly dangerous is how this ignorance is being weaponized. When she can't identify Ruby Bridges but confidently discusses "viewpoint diversity" requirements for Harvard, she's revealing how manufactured culture wars operate.
The same week McMahon claimed she'd "look into" the Tulsa Race Massacre, her department was investigating whether teaching that Joe Biden won the 2020 election constitutes "illegal DEI." In McMahon’s Education Department, historical facts about racial violence require investigation, but election conspiracy theories get institutional protection.
This selective application of "neutrality" shows their true motives. Comprehensive history becomes "political indoctrination" while systematic erasure gets labeled "patriotic education." It's the same logic that frames acknowledging racism as "divisive" while ignoring racism is somehow "unifying."
Some Oklahoma politicians have pushed for teaching about supposed election discrepancies to "identify discrepancies" in the 2020 election while simultaneously restricting how teachers can discuss the Tulsa Race Massacre that happened in their own state. Children will learn to question documented election results while remaining ignorant of similarly documented historical atrocities in their backyard.
Why Historical Knowledge Matters for Current Policy
Failing to learn this history or actively rejecting it directly affects the present. McMahon's ignorance about Ruby Bridges matters because understanding how a six-year-old needed federal protection to attend school illuminates why we still need federal civil rights enforcement. Learning about Tulsa matters because understanding how white mobs destroyed Black wealth helps explain the wealth gaps that persist today.
When education leaders don't know this history, they can't recognize its ongoing relevance. When they frame historical literacy as "woke ideology," they're not protecting children from indoctrination. They're ensuring the next generation remains ignorant of how we got here.
The stakes couldn't be higher. McMahon oversees a department serving 50 million students and distributing $80 billion annually. Her decisions about curriculum standards, civil rights enforcement, and federal funding will shape how American children understand their country for decades.
By installing leaders who either don't know the history their agencies are meant to preserve and protect or leaders who are actively opposed to these missions, they're ensuring that governmental expertise dies with the experts they're firing.
This mirrors tactics used by authoritarian movements worldwide: install loyalists who lack expertise, defund institutions that preserve knowledge, and reframe ignorance as authenticity. When the wrestling executive doesn't know basic American history, it's not a bug. It's a feature.
The goal is an education system that produces citizens who don't ask uncomfortable questions because they don't know the uncomfortable history that would prompt those questions.
A Way Forward
However, this moment also represents an opportunity. The fight for historical truth isn't about politics. It's about reality. Children deserve to learn about Ruby Bridges because her story reveals both America's capacity for cruelty and its potential for progress. They deserve to know about Tulsa because understanding how racism operates helps them recognize and resist it.
And if we're going to have education wars, the people waging them should at least know what they're fighting about.
But here's the terrifying reality: while we're busy being shocked by McMahon's ignorance, the systematic erasure of historical truth is accelerating.
Right now, traditional journalism is treating this as a "both sides" story about "education debates." They're not connecting the dots between McMahon's knowledge gaps and the systematic campaign to ensure the next generation grows up as historically illiterate as she is.
We need independent journalists tracking this institutional destruction of historical memory before it's too late to reverse.
Right now, less than 3% of my followers are paid subscribers. What could we accomplish with more support?
At 5% paid subscribers: I could investigate which textbook companies are already removing content about Ruby Bridges and Tulsa from new editions.
At 10% paid subscribers: I could document exactly which historical facts are being reclassified as "illegal DEI" in real time, state by state.
At 20% paid subscribers: we could build a comprehensive database of what's being erased so teachers and parents know what their children aren't learning.
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This isn’t just about keeping a newsletter alive. It's about preserving historical truth while there's still time to fight back against people who are literally too ignorant to know what they're destroying.
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References:
Jones, Ja'han. "Linda McMahon flubs basic facts in Senate budget hearing." MSNBC, June 4, 2025.
Turner, Cory, and Sequoia Carrillo. "In hearings, McMahon faces questions about the shrinking federal role in schools and colleges." NPR, June 4, 2025.
Tait, Robert. "Linda McMahon unsure if teaching Black history flouts Trump's anti-DEI policy." The Guardian, June 4, 2025.
Woodward, Alex. "Education Secretary Linda McMahon refuses to say if teaching kids that Trump lost in 2020 is 'illegal DEI'." The Independent, June 4, 2025.
Their mission is to dumb down the school system and to teach an alternate reality. Make sure your own family knows the truth.
US school kids were already very deficient in history before this regime. Future generations will know nothing at all, if this idiot continues in her job.