Welcome to a rain-soaked, windy open thread. I don’t know about you but I think I’m actually living in a marsh. Are you ready for an open thread?
Texas decided to cut Thomas Jefferson out of its history standards. He so inconvenient after all, with his insistence that there is a separation between church and state.
The Texas Board of Education has been meeting this week to revise its social studies curriculum. During the past three days, “the board’s far-right faction wielded their power to shape lessons on the civil rights movement, the U.S. free enterprise system and hundreds of other topics”:
– To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex and gender as social constructs.”
– The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”
– The Board refused to require that “students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others.”
– The Board struck the word “democratic” from the description of the U.S. government, instead terming it a “constitutional republic.”
All week we’ve been discussing incrementalism and progressive legislation. Steve Benen picks this up and discusses some important legislation and how they have changed:
On all of the major progressive breakthroughs from recent generations, it’s not even a close call.
When Medicaid passed, for example, it did very little for low-income adults, which is now seen as the point of the program. There were no doubt progressive advocates who, at the time of its passage, feared that it wasn’t ambitious enough, and that if they didn’t get improvements in the bill up front, they wouldn’t happen. With the benefit of hindsight, we know those fears were incorrect.
When Medicare passed, it all but ignored people with disabilities, didn’t cover prescription drugs, and made no allowances for home health services. It was, at best, a limited program at its inception. There may have been liberal Dems who thought that if they didn’t get improvements in the bill up front, they wouldn’t happen. With the benefit of hindsight, we know those fears were incorrect.
When Social Security passed, the benefits were negligible, and the program excluded agricultural workers, domestic workers, the self-employed, railroad employees, government employees, clergy, and those who worked for non-profits. The original Social Security bill offered no benefits for dependents or survivors, and included no cost-of-living increases. There were plenty of liberals at the time who thought Dems had watered down the plan to the point where its value had all but disappeared, and that if they didn’t get improvements in the bill up front, they wouldn’t happen. With the benefit of hindsight, we know those fears were incorrect.
Even the Civil Rights Act, in order to secure passage, needed to drop its voting rights provision. It wasn’t there up front, but it happened soon after.