Donald Trump must surely love the Board of Education in Douglas County. I recently wrote about how the voters of that lovely county elected four hard-right candidates to their county board, giving the extremely conservative members an instant majority.

And they didn’t take long to show their willingness to flex their muscles.

As reported in Colorado Politics, the four right wingers rushed through a vote to fire the district’s superintendent, Corey Wise, after a tense meeting. And yes, mask wear appears to be a part of the decision, though one of the minority members of the board pointed out that the Superintendent had only been carrying out his mask instructions from the board itself, but it appears facts were not central to the debate.

The new board president, Mike Peterson, repeatedly stated that he had lost faith in Wise, in part because Wise was seen as too closely aligned with the previous more liberal board president. But it was the words of one of the newly elected right-wingers that may have really been a moment of inadvertent honestly, when Kaylee Winegar stated, “I want a superintendent who aligns with us and aligns with our community and voted for us.” Think about that for a moment; she wants a superintendent who will align with “us,” meaning the new board. She isn’t explicitly stating there is a loyalty test to be the super in that district, but there is, first and foremost, an expectation of loyalty to the board.

Clearly there is now a loyalty test in place for Douglas County Schools; one that Donald Trump would love.

Peterson also showed his stripes when he commented that Wise was “colluding with the teachers union.” This is yet another page from the Trump playbook: demonize whenever possible, especially if you can attack a union. Now, as a career military officer myself, I’ve never been in a union, but I certainly appreciate what they have done for the working class. A 40-hour work week, for example, is a result of unions, as are many workplace safety rules, among other benefits.

But the Trump playbook (and, frankly the GOP playbook as well) would have everyone believe that unions are bad, and that if they would get out of the way, the kind and generous millionaires and billionaires of the nation would let benefits trickle down out to workers out of the goodness of their own hearts. Nonsense, of course, but I digress…

The attack on Wise is consistent with the ongoing and bizarre war on education by the Republican party overall. From banning books to limiting what can be taught, the GOP is relentlessly marching toward a single orthodoxy that can be presented to kids. For example, a Republican bill proposed in Oklahoma would ban teachers from saying that there were “victims” of slavery, and would require the teaching of the enslavement of fellow humans in a “balanced” manner. Oh, and by the way, that horrible “Critical Race Theory” that GOPers are going nuts over, and want banned from being taught in public schools? As it turns out, only a handful of law schools teach the subject, which argues that race has been an issue so endemic to our nation that our laws often reflect race as a factor.

Which it does, but again, I digress…

Thomas Jefferson valued education immensely. He saw an educated citizenry to be the key to keeping our freedoms. In a letter he wrote in 1787, Jefferson bragged, “ours are the only farmers who can read Homer.” And he wasn’t talking about Homer Simpson.

It appears the Douglas County Board of Education is now intent on reshaping the education of their students. I’m guessing they will insist that masks are useless, and that unions are evil. One of the new board members, Becky Myers – herself a former teacher – expressed increasing distress at the emails she was getting from current teachers who wanted Wise retained. Gosh, getting an opposing opinion must have been rather shocking, given the commitment to a singular point of view.

Our nation is at its greatest when the citizens are informed. We have seen the danger of misinformation often over the past few years, culminating in a mass group of vigilantes storming the US Capitol.

As I used to tell my students at the US Air Force Academy, education is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable. You are supposed to be challenged by different ways of thinking. You should arrive at your set of opinions not because mommy and daddy said something, but rather through the use of logic, evidence and reason.

Sadly, it appears the new school board in Douglas County are committed to a different path, a path where there is a single acceptable ideology to be taught. Remember the comment of the board member noted above, that she wanted a superintendent who aligned with “us.” Unfortunately, her definition of “us” is likely way too narrow.

And that’s a shame for the kids in Douglas County.

Hal Bidlack is a retired professor of political science and a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who taught more than 17 years at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.