Dear Friend,
This week, the Trump Administration’s “America 250” initiative — purportedly a year-long celebration of our nation’s semiquincentennial — kicked off in my home state of Iowa. Supporters gathered at the state fairgrounds were serenaded by the president’s bible business partner, Lee Greenwood, who sang “God Bless The U.S.A.” before the president himself delivered rambling remarks that were more self-adulating than country-adoring.
Ahead of the event, organizers said “the entire purpose of America 250 is to try to unite the country… and to bring the country together through patriotism, shared values, and this renewed sense of civic pride.” At the event, the president said of his non-supporters: “I hate them, too, you know that? I really do. I hate them. I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country.” So much for unity.
Nationalistic efforts to weaponize “patriotism” and impose a narrow definition of what it means to be an American are, of course, not novel or unprecedented, but rather a familiar refrain — even a persistent stain. Even Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of our Declaration of Independence, was called a “howling atheist” and an “infidel” unfit for public office.
Today’s Christian Nationalists want to rewrite our history in order to tell a much simpler, more sedating story. They don’t want us to remember our founders were radical, free-thinking, non-conforming skeptics and dissenters, or that what they founded 249 years and one day ago was the world’s first secular democratic republic. All that came after, they tell us, was not “negative” but “harmonious.” No need to consider different perspectives when there is a single narrative — their “Truth.”
Many forces have coalesced around this idea, but perhaps none has contributed more to the culture war crusade than Hillsdale College, a small, nondenominational Christian school in rural Michigan. Its satellite campus in D.C. is very near to the Heritage Foundation, which probably made it convenient for the two groups to co-create Project 2025.
Hillsdale is also known for developing the 1776 Curriculum, a “colorblind” counter to the 1619 Project that aims to “provide an education that is both classical and American” with an emphasis on “the principles of moral character and civic virtue.” In its own words: the “true story of history.”
It’s troubling, then, that this school has announced it will be partnering with Trump’s America 250 Task Force to produce “a new educational video series titled, ‘The Story of America.’” One upcoming lecture on the role of religion in America’s founding will feature Dr. Mark David Hall, author of Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church and Proclaim Liberty Throughout All The Land: How Christianity Has Advanced Freedom and Equality for All Americans.
Once an institution so opposed to government regulation and federal funding that, in the 1960s, it adopted its own “Declaration of Independence” and refused to abide by Title IV of the Civil Rights Act and report racial integration data, Hillsdale is now one of the nation’s biggest proponents of school privatization — the transfer of public dollars to private, mostly religious schools. They have quietly and quickly opened a network of publicly funded charter schools to spread their Christian Nationalist curricula across the country. Multiple states have attempted to insert it in public schools as well.
It seems so long as Hillsdale has its hands on the reins of government, it doesn’t care so much about “governmental control.” And its hands are all over the current regime. Hillsdale has been called “a feeder school for the Trump Administration;” its alumni and staff shuttle in and out of congressional offices, judicial chambers, and the White House; and the school itself has bragged about its connections to the administration and its “alumni pipeline to the Supreme Court.”
Jefferson repeatedly warned against this entanglement of religion and government. He was particularly skeptical of faith leaders’ involvement in politics and declared “eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” But tyranny over the mind is precisely what Hillsdale is all about. Its president has said, “Teaching is our trade; also, I confess, it’s our weapon.”
But that isn’t education; it’s religious indoctrination and ideological conquest. A sword doesn’t teach, it terrorizes. Hillsdale isn’t promoting patriotism so much as it’s peddling propaganda intended to erase a messy and pluralistic past in order to pave the way for a sanitized and authoritarian near future. It’s the very antithesis to the freedom of inquiry and thought our founders knew was foundational to a functional democracy.
America 250’s religious retelling is being funded by our tax dollars: The MAGA megabill signed into law yesterday includes an appropriation of $150,000,000, “in addition to amounts otherwise available… for events, celebrations, and activities surrounding the observance and commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States.”
American Atheists has not forgotten Jefferson’s warning, and we fight — as this organization has for more than 60 years — in that great, freethinking American tradition against the establishment of religion and for the inalienable rights of all Americans.
Ours is a nation with a long, proud history of throwing off the yoke of tyranny and striving for liberty and justice for all. Around the country, people are coming together because this work — protecting civil rights, advancing social inclusion, and breaking down barriers — has never been so vital and because, frankly, they’re fed up with Christian Nationalist lies masquerading as “Truth.”
If you agree this work is critical, or if you’re also fed up, I have to ask you to please support our work. If you already have a recurring contribution set up, thank you. In light of all we’re up against, are you able to increase your gift today? And if you’re not currently an active member, please know there’s no better time than now to stand with us. You can become a card-carrying member for any amount, but we’ll also send you our quarterly magazine, American Atheist, when you set up a monthly donation of $5 or more.
America’s story is still unfolding. As always, it will be shaped by those bold enough to dissent, to question, to demand freedom, and to tell the truth. Together, we can reject revisionist history and ensure the future belongs to all of us.
In solidarity,
Melina Cohen
Director of Strategic Communications & Policy Engagement
American Atheists is a 501(c)(3) non-partisan, nonprofit educational organization that relies on the support of members like you. Contributions are tax-deductible. Our Federal Tax ID Number is 74-2466507, and our Combined Federal Campaign number is 52217.
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