Politics naturally follows culture because culture defines who we are and how we see ourselves. It is a reflection of what we hold dear and what we disdain. Culture defines everything else, including education. Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem former HUD Secretary Dr. Ben Carson chronicle our cultural decline and how close the barbarians are to the gates.

Noem and Carson: “In his 1989 farewell address, President Ronald Reagan worried whether we were doing a good enough job teaching our own children what it means to be American. He longed for what he called an ‘informed patriotism.’

This sentiment was echoed over 30 years later by President Trump, who in his own farewell address warned that our ‘loss of confidence in ourselves’ was not just a worry, but our greatest danger. ‘No nation can long thrive,’ President Trump said, ‘that loses faith in its own values, history and heroes – for these are the very sources of our unity and our vitality.’

It’s bad enough to lose one’s faith, which at least holds forth the possibility of recovering it. But what if we give up and abandon altogether the teaching of our children the true and inspiring story of America? What will become of our youngest Americans who are starting off with a blank slate about what our country means and stands for? What exactly are we doing if we are not teaching them about their country’s values, history and heroes?

The alarming answer is, in our nation today, there are far too many classrooms where our children and grandchildren are not learning about the positive revolution in human affairs set in motion by our Founders, or how later leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called upon the wisdom and vision of the Founders to defeat the evil injustices of slavery and segregation. Instead, many are learning that our Founders were altogether sinful men unworthy of statues or even praise. The historic achievements of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Douglass and King are being shelved in favor of the false and destructive narrative that we are a systemically racist and ultimately irredeemable nation.

Even worse – and at an alarming pace – students are being subjected to the radical concept known as critical race theory, which pits them against one another on the basis of race and gender under the guise of achieving ‘equity.’ Not only is this extreme ideology deeply divisive and harmful, but it rejects America’s most defining principle – that as individuals we are all created equal by God. This is not a formula for building a more perfect Union…It’s now up to us to choose – will we prepare our youngest generation to write the next exciting chapter in the great American story? If so, we must act now, before it’s too late.”