Tag Archives: Ted Cruz

Christian Nationalism and Education

28 Jul

By Thomas Ultican 7/28/2025

Since 2024, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas have passed laws requiring ten commandment posters in all classrooms. These kinds of laws come to us courtesy of a single Christian “bill mill,” Project Blitz. Dozens of other state bills in fidelity with Project Blitz’s proposed legislation were also passed. In 2021, they distributed 74 pieces of model legislation of which 14 passed into law including “Parental Review and Consent for Sex Education” and “Religious Freedom Day” promoting “a historical version of ‘religious freedom’ rooted in Christian nationalism.” Mark Keierleber, reporting for The 74, wrote, “Among the architects of Project Blitz is the Barton-founded influence machine, WallBuilders.”

The WallBuilders home page claims to be, “Helping Americans Remember and Preserve the True History of Our Great Nation …” Unfortunately; it is in reality a propaganda site posting lies about American history in order to advance a Christian Nationalist agenda. Texas preacher and amateur historian, David Barton, founded WallBuilders and has become the most quoted man in the realm of Christian Nationalism. The organization’s name is an Old Testament reference to rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, told an audience at the ProFamily Legislators Conference, which was being hosted by WallBuilders, Barton’s teachings have had “a profound influence on me, and my work, and my life and everything I do.” It is widely held that the Speaker is a Christian Nationalist. President Trump has cultivated their support. In March, he hosted David Barton in the oval office.

David Barton and Trump in the Oval Office this March

David Barton

Barton was born in Fort Worth, Texas. When he completed junior high, his family moved to the small Texas town of Aledo about 40 miles west of Fort Worth. After graduating third in his high school class, he attended Oral Roberts University, the evangelical Christian college in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Barton came to Oral Roberts on a math and science scholarship but ended up with a degree in religious education.

His parents started a Bible study group in Aledo which became a fundamentalist church and a K-12 school. David taught math and science, coached basketball, and became the school’s principal.

Barton became an amateur historian. In her first book, The Good News Club, Katherine Stewart claimed, “Pseudo-historian David Barton—a Texas-based darling of the Religious Right and founder of the Christian Nationalist organizations WallBuilders and the Black Robe Regiment—seems to have no problem fictionalizing the history.” (Page 67)

Nate Blakeslee in an article for the Texas Monthly observed:

“In a broader sense, Barton’s work is reminiscent of nineteenth-century historians like Charles Coffin and Parson Weems, scholars who wrote from an unabashedly Christian perspective at a time when there was no culture of objectivity among historians. Weems was best known for his biography of George Washington, in which he did his best to claim Washington for the Christians, despite his well-known reputation as a Deist. In a brief, credulous treatise called The Bulletproof George Washington, Barton resurrected an old Weems-era tale about the supposed divine protection of Washington during the French and Indian War.”

In her second book, The Power Worshippers, Stewart noted:

“The historical errors and obfuscations tumbled out of Barton’s works fast and furious. Intent on demonstrating that the American republic was founded on ‘Judeo-Christian principles,’ Barton reproduced and alleged quote from James Madison to the effect that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of American civilization. Chuck Norris, Rush Limbaugh, Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson, and countless other luminaries of the right recycled the quote in so many iterations that it has become a fixture of Christian nationalist ideology. Yet there is no evidence that Madison ever said such a thing.” (Page 133)

An NPR article from 2012 provides a good example of what Blakeslee and Stewart are writing about. While most of us learned that the Constitution was a secular document, Barton disagrees and says it is laced with biblical quotations:

‘“You look at Article 3, Section 1, the treason clause,’ he told James Robison on Trinity Broadcast Network. ‘Direct quote out of the Bible. You look at Article 2, the quote on the president has to be a native born? That is Deuteronomy 17:15, verbatim. I mean, it drives the secularists nuts because the Bible’s all over it! Now we as Christians don’t tend to recognize that. We think it’s a secular document; we’ve bought into their lies. It’s not.”

“We looked up every citation Barton said was from the Bible, but not one of them checked out. Moreover, the Constitution as written in 1787 has no mention of God or religion except to prohibit a religious test for office.”

In 2012, Barton’s bestselling book “The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson” was pulled by its Christian publisher, Thomas Nelson, because they “lost confidence” in the book. Senior Vice President Brian Hampton noted, “There were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all.”

The 1792 Aitken Bible was the first Bible ever printed in the USA. Barton claims it was published and paid for by congress. This was another one of his proofs that the United States was founded on Christian principles. The bible was not published by congress; it was published and paid for by printer Robert Aitken. At the time, there was an embargo on bibles from England. Responding to Aitken’s request, Congress agreed to have its chaplains check the Bible for accuracy.

From 1997 to 2006, Barton was vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party.

In 2015, David Barton took leadership of Ted Cruz’s Keep the Promise Pack. The $38 million super PAC which put Cruz legitimately into the presidential contest was financed mostly by four people: New York hedge fund guy Robert Mercer ($11 million), Houston investor Toby Neugebauer ($10 million) and ($15 million) from Dan and Farris Wilks, billionaire brothers from West Texas. This was the Christian Nationalist ticket for 2016.

Barton Speaking at a 2016 Cruz Rally in Henderson, Nevada

The Henderson rally was hosted by Keep the Promise PAC which Barton was running. Besides Cruz, he was also joined on stage by Christian Nationalist pundit Glenn Beck. Barton maintains a relative low profile but his influence is massive.

Wrapping Up

Most people have never heard of David Barton but his sway with politicians like Speaker Mike Johnson, born again evangelical pastors and Christian Nationalist billionaires is pervasive. Several political organizations have started tracking his activities. The following were extracted from a lengthy article on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s web page:

“In 2012, readers of the History News Network voted Barton’s new book the “least credible history book in print.”

“Without religion, and specifically without Christianity, as Barton narrowly understands it, the Constitution will die.”

“…, Barton is better seen as a Republican political operative, as researcher Frederick Clarkson has described him, and as a culture warrior, who is deeply committed to right-wing theology, and seems focused not on accurate historical writing but instead on rewriting the norms of government and culture in a decidedly Christian supremacist direction.”

“He has advised Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Sam Brownback, and Michael Huckabee.”

“This includes bills to ban abortion and prevent gay marriage, support religious expression in public schools and public life, and resist gun control.”

“And it allows him to argue that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and actions are constitutionally, as well as religiously, imperative.”

“In 2010, the Texas Board of Education voted to rewrite the history textbooks to make them more conservative and Christian-friendly. Barton was appointed as an expert advisor. This caused controversy as Barton supported efforts to excise Martin Luther King Jr. and 1960s farm worker activist Cesar Chavez from textbooks.”

The ideology is so backward that only lies and billionaire dollars sustain it.

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Teach Truth

23 Feb

By Thomas Ultican 2/23/2021

In “Teach Truth: The Struggle for Antiracist Education,” Author Jesse Hagopian takes his readers inside the struggle and shares Black culture. At the 2018 Indianapolis Network for Public Education conference, Journey for Justice Chairman, Jitu Brown, introduced Jesse as “a freedom fighter who happens to be a teacher.” What I did not understand then is that he also happens to be man who can write.  This book is exceptional.

Jesse defines two concepts that he uses throughout the book: uncritical race theory and truthcrime law.

He states, “Uncritical race theory denies that racism exists at all, or maintains that racism primarily victimizes white people, or rejects any systemic or institutional analysis in favor of an inter personal explanation that understands racism as only sporadic and merely the product of individual bias.” (Page 7)

He explains:

“A truthcrime is any act of honest pedagogy in a jurisdiction where truthful teaching has been outlawed. Truthcrime is enforced disremembering. A truthcrime law, then, is one that makes lying to children obligatory and effectively renders honest educators as truthcriminals.” (Page 16)

Interesting Take on CRT

A goofball white guy from Seattle, Washington became famous by attacking critical race theory (CRT) in a completely dishonest way. Unfortunately, right-wing billionaire money trumpeted his assertions. At a time when the vast majority of America’s teachers had never heard of CRT, he claimed that public schools were indoctrinating students with CRT. For a short period of time, CRT became the racist rights number one anti-public schools slogan and a Republican campaign tool.

CRT emerged amongst scholars and lawyers in the late 1970s and early 80s as a way to understand the forces upon Black citizens after Brown v. Board of Education in 1955, The Civil Right act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965. It was pretty much the purview of graduate school seminars. (Page 6)

At a June, 2022 “Road to Majority Policy Conference” in Nashville, Tennessee, Texas Senator Ted Cruz declared, “Let me tell you right now, critical race theory is bigoted, it is a lie, and it is every bit as racist as the Klansmen in white sheets.” Hagopian observed, “The irony here is profound; while Cruz compares those who teach CRT to the KKK, his own attack on antiracist education aligns with one of the Klan’s primary objectives: thwarting Black education and antiracist pedagogy—which they have done ferociously throughout US history.” (Page 40)

Hagopian discusses why feckless Democrats did not effectively respond to the GOP’s CRT attacks. He gives the example of Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s race for the Virginia Governorship against Glenn Youngkin. When Youngkin made a full throated attack on CRT calling it “toxic” and “flagrant racism, plain and simple” that is a “poisonous left-wing doctrine,” McAuliffe replied, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” This response might have cost him the race. (Page 150)

Why was McAuliffe’s answer so weak in this contest between two multimillionaire white men? Hagopian think he knows. He says, “Because many liberal politicians don’t actually support CRT, they are placed in a difficult spot during elections when Republicans attack it.” Although opposing bigotry, they do not want to support a movement that could upset their corporate sponsors. (Page 150)

Diane Ravitch wondered why so many people were silent in the face of a coordinated effort to teach inaccurate history? She wrote:

“Where was Bill Gates? Although right-wing nuts attacked Bill Gates for spreading CRT, Gates said nothing to defend schools and teachers against the attacks on them. He is not known for shyness. He uses his platform to declare his views on every manner of subject. Why the silence about teaching the nation’s history with adherence to the truth? Why no support for courageous teachers who stand up for honesty in the curriculum?” (Page 153)

Hagopian concludes, “Their lack of gusto for racial, economic, and social justice stems instead from the fact that, as with the GOP, they are predominantly funded by white billionaires who see no advantage to teaching students about systematic racism or capitalist exploitation.” (Page 156)

President Trump invokes maximum hyperbole with his unenlightened view of CRT:

“Getting critical race theory out of our schools in not just a matter of values, it’s also a matter of national survival. We have no choice, the fate of any nation ultimately depends upon the willingness of its citizens to lay down—and they must do this—lay down their very lives to defend their country” (Page 79)

Billionaire Dollars Push the Lie

Jesse began his career as a teacher at Hendley Elementary School in South Washington DC. The school’s neighborhood had a dearth of grocery stores and jobs. Hendley had a completely segregated 100% African American student population. It was 2001 and that September, the World Trade Center attack was coincident with him becoming an educator.  (Page 223)

He tells the story of his first year teaching noting seeing a police officer jack-up a fifth grade boy against a wall; the boys feet were dangling. The student was accused of throw paper in class. Jesse also describes a whole in the middle of the classroom chalkboard that his students called a bullet hole.

A poster session on US history revealed another hole in the classroom. The posters were all hung on a Friday and that weekend it rained. Upon arriving at school on Monday morning, Jesse found the floor flooded and the posters soaked. After the second classroom flooding, he wised-up and put a large trash bin below the hole in the roof. His work orders to fix the roof were never filled.

Hagopian observes, “I received a graduate degree in education theory that year by witnessing the cynicism of our nation’s ability to mobilize armies to bomb people on the other side of the world while refusing to find the money to fix the hole in the ceiling of my classroom or properly care for these children in the shadow of the White House.” (Page 224)

The attack on teaching truth in America’s classrooms is being financed by right-wing billionaires. People like Julie Fancelli, an heir of the Publix grocery fortune, former secretary of public education, Betsy DeVos, oil magnate, Charles Koch, the secretive electronics billionaire, Barre Seid, and so many more.

Jesse notes that:

“Maintaining an economic system such as ours, where eighty-one billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of all people on Earth, doesn’t just happen by accident. It takes careful investment in institutions that shape ideas, and those investments see the biggest returns in the mass media and the system of schooling.” (Page 157)

A Surprise to Me

I was aware that homosexuality was illegal in America until the 1970s and that the legal turning point came in 1969 at the Stonewall Inn. This gay bar in Greenwich Village was the site of a gay uprising when police raided the bar. Today’s annual pride festivals originate from and celebrate the Stonewall riot.

What I did not know until reading Teach Truth is that the rebellion was led by Marsha P. Johnson and a host of Black and Brown queer people. (Page 97-98)

I highly recommend reading this book. It is full of surprises like this one.

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Another Oklahoma Education Blunder

8 Sep

By Thomas Ultican 9/8/2024

Under the suspect leadership of Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, the education department released testing results he described as “tremendous.” However, they were a fiction. With the new unannounced cut scores, 51% of third graders were proficient in reading or better compared to last year’s 29%. That is just one of many examples.

September 10, 2020, Governor Kevin Stitt appointed Walters Oklahoma’s Secretary of Education. In 2022, Walters ran for Superintendent of Public Instruction receiving the governor’s endorsement and that of Texas Senator, Ted Cruz. Walters won 53% of the vote in a Republican primary runoff against April Grace and then easily defeated Democrat Jena Nelson in the general election.

The 2022 election appeared to be part of the seven mountains movement. Crazy Ted’s father, Rafael Cruz, is a seven mountains advocate, who during a live streamed Patriot Mobil sermon, asserted that the separation of church and state is a myth. He claimed the founders meant it to be a “one-way wall” preventing the government from interfering with the church, not preventing the church from having dominion over the government. Clearly Kevin Stitt spent political capital appointing Walters and then supporting him ever since for a reason. Walter’s behavior in office, mandating Bible lessons, attacking the LGBTQ+ community and teachers, looks like dominionism.

The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) known as the nation’s report card has consistently shown Oklahoma results trailing most states. In 2022, NAEP testing results after COVID were down for the nation. The fourth and eighth grade math and reading results reveal that the average declines in Oklahoma were worse than the national averages. This is the first data that is related to Walters’s leadership of education in Oklahoma.

The testing fiasco is odd. Was it just incompetence or was there something else happening? This is not a unique event. As a member of the Technical Advisory committee wrote in May to the education department’s assessment director, “Historically, I understand that [the department] has handled these types of changes with media events where the department has invited news organizations to help support the communication of changes to the system.” For some reason, these past practices were not followed. Maybe Walters thought he could make the state’s poor testing performance disappear.

Attacking the Media

When the testing issue exploded, Ryan Walters responded:

“It is an incredible position of the media gaslighting the public on what’s happening here. We have not rolled out the test scores yet. So to be attacked on how we rolled out test scores before we roll out test scores, I found [a] really fascinating bit of fan fiction out there.”

Was he purposefully lying or didn’t he know? Neither case looks good. Walters’ department had already posted the statewide testing data to the state website before his attack on the media.

Another odd lie from Walters was his claim that no public announcements were made because his administration was busy explaining the new results to school districts. Several school leaders claimed they received their test scores from the state Department of Education with no notice of material changes to scoring.

Even without an explanation, it was obvious to district leaders something must have changed. Midwest City-Del City Public Schools Superintendent Rick Cobb said, “We’re probably seeing some growth, probably hitting that point past the pandemic where statewide we’re reversing the learning loss, but we didn’t reverse 20% of it in one year.” In Watonga Public Schools, Superintendent Kyle Hilterbran said he expected his students to show improvement, but the leap in statewide averages told him the state must have reset its scores.

The Oklahoma Voice developed a source in the state assessment group allowing them to report:

“Fifth-grade results in English language arts had the greatest boost from the new scoring method. About 59% of fifth graders will be considered proficient this year, an increase of 33%.

“Without the recent scoring changes, their proficiency rate would drop to 26%. In 2023, the proficiency rate for fifth-grade English was 28%.”

Impeachment Possible

Many are blaming Walters for the communications breakdown. They cite his messy political brawls over the summer as distracting him from doing his job. In June, he drew national attention by mandating that all public schools teach the Bible. A federal audit by the U.S. Department of Education called Oklahoma out of compliance with testing and handling Title I funds. Walters of course blamed the previous administration.

On top of all that, seventeen Republican said they would be seeking an impeachment investigation against him. Their signed letter included:

  1. Denied entry into a Department of Education executive board meeting for an Education Committee member.
  2. Employed significant delays in answering Committee inquires (2 committees).
  3. Failed to comply with legislative budgetary directive regarding school security dollars.
  4. Failed to turn over complete information regarding spending on travel.
  5. Failed to fill in a timely manner Open Records Act requests.
  6. Defied legislative appropriation authority by refusing to buy critically needed asthma inhalers.

The letter from the sub-committee on education chair, Mark McBride, was addressed to Speaker of the House, Charles McCall. McCall said he would not act on the letter unless 51 house Republicans signed on which is two thirds of them. McBride responded, “I don’t know that 51 is obtainable, but I think at 26, that’s concerning to me if I was in his shoes.” Twenty-six members would represent half the Republican caucus.

The Education Committee member barred from the Department of Education’s executive board meeting was former teacher and Democratic Representative, Jacob Roscrants. The former teacher observed:

“If you look at the state statute and how it spells out how you impeach a statewide-elected official, in my eyes, Superintendent Walters has far exceeded that. There’s so much incompetence coming from Superintendent Walters, his board and the State Department of Education under him.”

Walters reacted defiantly to the call for his impeachment. In reporting on this, the Oklahoma Voice header read, “Ryan Walters urges Oklahoma House to start his impeachment proceedings ‘immediately.’” He claimed lawmakers have publicized baseless lies about him.

Walters accused House Speaker, McCall, and Education Committee Chairman, McBride, of trying to impeach him for political gain. He asserted the speaker plans to run for governor in 2026. “The speaker wants to impeach me for political advantage in the 2026 governor’s race,” Walters declared.

On another front, the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT), an investigative service for the Oklahoma legislature, was activated. It is investigating the allegation that Walters was withholding funds for school security, asthma inhalers and teacher maternity leave. Speaker McCall reported, “This investigation by LOFT allows us to address these concerns efficiently without the need for a costly special session.”

In another related occurrence, Phil Bacharach, a spokesperson for Attorney General Gentner Drummond, said, “We are very concerned by what appeared to be a willful violation of the Open Meeting Act.” He noted that his office is investigating and will “take appropriate action.”

Walters had an eventful August.

Observations

Former school teacher, Ryan Walters, with no administrative experience was put in charge of Oklahoma education by Governor Kevin Stitt. The only obvious reason for his selection is he is a Christian culture warrior. Makes me wonder if Oklahoma has been captured by a dangerous Christian cult?

A member of the Republican Party, Walters, has been a vocal critic of critical race theory, LGBT students’ rights, and teachers’ unions. He has been described as “the state’s top culture warrior.” Walters appointed anti-gay “The Libs of TikTok” creator, Chaya Raichik, to the Oklahoma Library Advisory Board.

He campaigned for and won the removal of Tulsa Public Schools Superintendent Deborah Gist and supported the conservative political organization Moms for Liberty.

When non-binary, Nex Benedict, died after an horrific bathroom beating, Walters showed off his profound ignorance saying he does not believe non-binary or transgender people exit. He stated:

“There’s not multiple genders. There’s two. That’s how God created us.”

This is what it looks like when a dangerous cult gains power.

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