Named for the year of Texas’ independence, the 1836 Project is modeled on the Trump administration’s 1776 Project, which similarly promoted a “patriotic education” and pushed a Reaganesque view of the past. Criticized for historical inaccuracies and partisanship, President Joe Biden abandoned it the day he took office.
The 1836 Project is a rebuke to The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which seeks to reframe our national story by starting in August 1619, when the first enslaved Africans arrived in colonial Virginia, rather than 1776, and recognizes that the United States was built upon the whip-wounded backs of enslaved Blacks. Last year, Texas outlawed the 1619 Project curriculum, taught in more than 5,000 classrooms nationwide, from its schools.
The 1836 Project will perpetuate stubborn 19th-century myths that will not die: Texas, for instance, has always stood on the side of freedom and liberty. Hard work alone inevitably leads to success. “Business-friendly” tax breaks make for a prosperous populace without the need for a robust social safety net and social services.
In reality, thanks to its stingy government, Texas has the fourth-lowest literacy rate in the U.S., the highest rate of medically uninsured people nationwide, and ranks eighth in income inequality. The governor wants to stop teaching noncitizen children who attend public schools—an idea as cold-hearted as it is illogical and dumb. Forget our obesity epidemic, infrastructure failures, and militarized border.
The project is a politics of distraction. It’s designed to keep Texans from examining their true history, to help them forget how the powerful are ripping them off, and stop them from pushing back against an extremist state government. For their children, the purpose is to further erode critical thinking skills. The long-term effect is a bifurcated electorate and an incongruent shared history. The myth of the Alamo, and by extension the Texan persona, is a ready-made and highly portable identity due to advertising and Hollywood’s John Wayne-like portraits. Yet, our state’s true history is only superficially understood by outsiders and even Texans themselves. Ask around and most adults in the state are surprised to learn the more accurate, nuanced history on which our culture stands. Texas is not the monoculture 1836 supporters want newcomers to adopt.