Extremist republicans are destroying everything that stands in the way of their ideological dogma. Just look at Tennessee.

The self-same legislative leader who thought it a good idea to expel two Back colleagues for protesting in favor of gun safety, is back with a new dumb idea. You might think Cameron Sexton would have learned something from the humiliating experience when the legislators were restored by their voters and the whole country looked at his antics with disgust.

But do they ever learn?

Sexton, who is speaker of the Tennessee House and under investigation for potential residency fraud, recently argued that his state should not accept nearly $2B in federal school aid. He argued that the money was not needed, and that the state should turn down the federal money because it comes with standards, and that would somehow undermine the maintain absolute control of curriculum he wants to maintain for the state.

That made no sense at the time because the federal government does not set academic standards. Instead, it requires states to have “challenging” standards in reading, math and science.  Even common core standards are content neutral. They say things like students should be able to “determine the these or central idea of a text.”

Now, however, Sexton’s plan for the children of Tennessee is clear: indoctrination into MAGA thought is to be the lodestone of Tennessee’s system of education. Even anodyne federal standards can get in the way of creating a new generation of Christian Nationalist thugs.

As first reported by Judd Legum’s Popular Information, Sexton appointed Laurie Cardoza-Moore to oversee the development and approval of Social Studies materials. Ms. Cardoza-Moore’s credentials? She says, “US history textbooks are the greatest national security threat to the United States.” She calls the 9/11 attack on America “an inside job.” And, of course, her twitter account was full of MAGA election lies. She has led the opposition to the construction of a mosque in the state but is certain there is no such thing as systemic racism.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore

After Sexton’s team transforms public education, you can bet that the states graduates are going to be as ignorant as they will be intolerant. At every opportunity, judgement will be preferred to thought, dogma will replace facts. Let’s see how many employers want to hire these grads.

Once again, when republicans use words like “indoctrination,” they are admitting their own crime and lying about the rest of us. But is Speaker Sexton so determined to bring our Tennessee’s politics into the Middle Ages that he is willing to bring its economy there as well?

Might as the same question of the Grand Inquisition known as the Freedom Caucus who would happily default on the debt and destroy the economy to impose their will on the rest of us.

This crowd is long past the point of reasoning. We just have to beat them.