'Dangerous': 'MAGA troll' blasted for new far-right purity test

22 July

A "God, Guns and Trump" sign placed on an old military bus in November 2020 (Florida Chuck/Shutterstock.com)

Critics of far-right Oklahoma Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters often attack him as a highly performative MAGA troll. Walters' antics include purchasing Donald Trump-themed Bibles for classrooms and promoting the false, repeatedly debunked conspiracy theory that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.

But Slate's Molly Olmstead, in an article published on July 22, emphasizes that Walters' buffoonish qualities don't make him any less dangerous. And she emphasizes that his plan to screen education applicants for MAGA purity shouldn't be taken lightly.

"This month," Olmstead explains, "Oklahoma's education department announced an innovative new approach to screening aspiring teachers in the state: any applicants from 'woke' states would need to first pass an ideology test created by the right-wing group PragerU. It was an announcement that seemed engineered to draw national news coverage and inflame liberal audiences. Under this plan, teachers from states with 'progressive education policies' would be tested on the U.S. Constitution, American exceptionalism, and 'the fundamental biological differences between boys and girls.'"

Olmstead continues, "The screening is guaranteed to test teachers for a deeply MAGA-inflected understanding of U.S. history, government, and society: PragerU, a right-wing group with a stated mission of countering leftism in education, is already known for its white nationalist-adjacent content for schoolchildren."

PragerU is the brainchild of Dennis Prager, a far-right talk radio host and Trump supporter.

"Walters' proposals for the school system have included a mandate that all public schools teach the Bible; a plan to collect children's immigration status when they register for public school; and new social studies standards proposals that would have high school students 'identify discrepancies in 2020 election results,'" Olmstead observes. "Each of these announcements solidified Walters' reputation as a relentless attention-seeker, calculating every action from his office to appeal to the power players of the MAGA movement…. These stunts have paid off. Walters has been profiled in outlets all over the country, and he has become the face of the Christian nationalist campaigns into public education."

The MAGA Republican's stunts, Olmstead argues, raise the question: "Is Walters all superficiality, a media-obsessive without the stamina or standing for real, transformative politics? Or is he actually capable of remaking Oklahoma's schools — and signaling what MAGA could bring to schools across the country?"

"In sign of just how bizarre American politics have become in this second Trump era," Olmstead warns, "Walters may be a bit of both. As traditional institutions and procedures buckle under MAGA politics, Walters has proven that with the right national climate, slapdash own-the-lib pronouncements can become serious policy. He's a performer, but he also happens to be a major change-maker…. It may be tempting not to take people like Walters seriously, but he has proven that with enough volume, some gimmicks stick."

Molly Olmstead's full article for Slate is available at this link (subscription required).

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