The Fake & Fraudulent Prophets Around the President
September 4, 2026 |
Daniel Henderson
Last Sunday, the film Mr. Nobody Against Putin won the Oscar for Best Feature Documentary. I watched it that afternoon before the Oscar presentations, and I was deeply struck by this story. It follows Pavel Talankin in his job at a school in Karabash, a poor mining town near the Ural Mountains.
It might be that my career as a teacher drew me into the story of this first-person exposé of Russia’s wartime student indoctrination program. It was told through the eyes and lens of a small-town elementary school teacher who dared to challenge the program and expose the truth.
While recording his students on video, Talankin also documents the Putin administration’s moves to control public perception during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. It was an obvious program of propaganda attempting to control the identity of the young children. Their academic education suffered greatly as a result.
Most eerie was how closely Russia’s “patriotic education” program mirrored much in the current MAGA “patriotic education” program. The film was a wake-up call to understand where we are headed as we careen down the MAGA road toward authoritarianism.
The Russian curriculum control methods reminded me of the current attempts by MAGA to change, control, and indoctrinate students into a specific identity… ultra-conservative patriots.
The documentary Mr. Nobody Against Putin offers a revealing look at how modern governments can use education not merely to inform students but to shape their political identity. Through the story of a Russian teacher struggling to maintain intellectual honesty in the classroom, the film shows how patriotic education in contemporary Russia seeks to cultivate loyalty to the state and its historical narrative.
While Russia’s authoritarian political system differs dramatically from the United States, the documentary nonetheless raises an unsettling question:
When political movements attempt to define the “correct” version of national history, how does education shift from promoting critical-thinking citizens to producing identity loyalists?
Recent debates over “patriotic education” in the United States suggest that this tension is not confined to authoritarian regimes such as Putin’s. MAGA education initiatives in this country are full-throated propaganda programs designed to create identity loyalists.
By encouraging students to internalize a heroic, mostly white national narrative and discouraging critical examination of the past, these programs cultivate identity loyalists rather than critical-thinking citizens. The result is an educational system that prioritizes emotional attachment to the nation, or its leader, over democratic inquiry.
The Russian case depicted in Mr. Nobody Against Putin illustrates the logic of patriotic education at its most explicit. Under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, the Russian government has steadily expanded ideological oversight of schools. Teachers have been required to incorporate state-approved patriotic lessons and scripts, including weekly discussions emphasizing national unity, reverence for military sacrifice, and pride in Russia’s historical achievements.
It is a program of “Russian exceptionalism.”
In one striking moment in the documentary, a teacher receives instructions to lead students through a “patriotic discussion” praising Russian soldiers and defending the government’s actions in Ukraine. The lesson is not presented as a debate or inquiry. Instead, it is framed as a civic duty, and students are expected to affirm the nation’s moral righteousness and its leadership. The teacher’s discomfort and the quiet tension in the classroom reveal how education becomes a vehicle for political messaging rather than critical reflection.
The teacher neither encouraged questions nor did students offer any.
Russian students are taught to see their country as a civilizational defender of traditional values against hostile foreign powers. Military victories and national sacrifice are celebrated as defining elements of national identity. In this system, questioning the national narrative is framed as disloyalty.
American schoolteachers and journalists are already aware of this threat.
This approach reflects a broader strategy pursued by the Russian state. The Kremlin has increasingly linked patriotic education with the cultural authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, presenting Russia as a spiritually grounded civilization in contrast to what officials portray as a morally declining West.
It is classic Russian-style Christian nationalism.
Schools become a crucial arena where this worldview is transmitted to younger generations. By shaping how children understand their country’s past and its role in the world, the state seeks to cultivate citizens who instinctively defend the national narrative and specifically, justify Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Educational initiatives emerging from the Christian nationalist movement in the United States differ significantly in scale and coercive power, yet reflect a shared impulse. Advocates argue that American schools have become overly critical of national history and insufficiently appreciative of the country’s founding ideals. In response, they have promoted policies to restore what they call “patriotic education.”
One prominent example is the creation of the 1776 Commission during Donald Trump’s presidency. The commission’s report argued that American history education should emphasize the nation’s founding principles and resist interpretations that portray the United States as fundamentally shaped by racism or oppression. Although the commission itself was short-lived, its framework influenced a wave of state-level initiatives to promote patriotic curricula.
In Texas, lawmakers established the so-called 1836 Project to promote awareness of what officials describe as the “values” that shaped the state’s founding. The project encourages educational materials that highlight Texas’s historical achievements and civic traditions. While such initiatives are often framed as efforts to strengthen civic pride, critics argue that they risk presenting a simplified historical narrative that minimizes the darker aspects of the state’s past, including slavery and racial violence.
Iowa’s House File 802, signed in 2021, prohibits public schools, colleges, and state agencies from teaching or training on specific concepts deemed “divisive” regarding race and gender. It bans instructing that individuals are inherently racist, sexist, or responsible for past actions of their race/sex, aiming to curb Critical Race Theory.
In addition, Iowa passed a law in 2024 that required rewriting the social studies standards according to the recommendations of the conservative think tank Civics Alliance. These standards narrow the teaching of history to an explicitly “Western view,” leaving out important elements of history from other cultures.
Reports indicate these laws have created a “chilling effect” on discussions of race and gender, with educators reporting increased difficulty in teaching about injustice.
At the classroom level, these policy debates often translate into real pressure on teachers. Across several states, educators have reported uncertainty about how to address topics such as racism, civil rights, or historical inequality in light of new restrictions.
Laws targeting interpretations in the academic field of Critical Race Theory have led some teachers to avoid discussions that might be perceived as controversial. In some communities, school board meetings have become battlegrounds over curriculum and library books, with activist groups such as Moms for Liberty advocating for the removal of materials they view as unpatriotic or inappropriate.
In this environment, teachers may choose caution over inquiry, narrowing classroom discussion even when no explicit prohibition exists.
Additional proposals seek to embed patriotic norms directly into educational goals. Some statutes instruct educators to cultivate “informed patriotism” or guide students toward appreciating the moral purposes of the American founding without questioning the inherent contradictions in that founding.
Other initiatives emphasize traditional values or seek to increase the presence of religious perspectives in public schools. Taken together, these efforts reveal an attempt to shape not only what students learn but also how they emotionally relate to their country.
To understand the significance of these initiatives, it is useful to distinguish between two different models of civic education.
The first model aims to cultivate citizens who can think critically. In this approach, students are encouraged to examine historical evidence, evaluate competing interpretations, and grapple with the moral complexities of their nation’s past. Students are encouraged to ask questions; sometimes tough questions.
The United States, for example, is studied not only as a democratic experiment founded on ideals of liberty and equality but also as a society that has repeatedly struggled to live up to those ideals. Students learn about slavery, segregation, and the long fight for civil rights alongside the achievements of the American constitutional system. Patriotism in this model is compatible with criticism because democratic progress often depends on confronting injustice.
The second model seeks to cultivate identity loyalists. Here, the central objective is not critical inquiry but emotional attachment to the nation. History is presented primarily as a story of national greatness and moral purpose. While mistakes may be acknowledged, they are framed as deviations from an essentially noble national character. Criticism that challenges this narrative can be portrayed as unpatriotic or corrosive to social unity.
Educational systems that emphasize patriotic identity typically employ several recurring techniques:
The Russian educational policies depicted in Mr. Nobody Against Putin represent an extreme form of this model. There, patriotic education is integrated into a broader authoritarian political system that restricts dissent and centralizes control over textbooks and curricula. Teachers who challenge official narratives risk losing their jobs or facing legal consequences. The goal is clear: to produce citizens who view loyalty to the state and to Putin as a moral obligation.
The United States remains a far more pluralistic and decentralized society. School curricula are shaped by thousands of local districts and state governments rather than a single national authority. Constitutional protections for free speech and religious liberty provide safeguards against the type of centralized ideological control seen in authoritarian regimes. For these reasons, American debates over patriotic education operate within a fundamentally different political environment.
Yet the comparison raised by the documentary remains instructive. Both contexts illustrate how education can become a battleground for competing visions of national identity. When political movements attempt to prescribe the acceptable narrative of a nation’s past, classrooms inevitably become sites of ideological conflict.
The stakes are particularly high in democratic societies. Democracies rely on citizens who can evaluate evidence, challenge authority, ask important questions, and participate in informed debate.
A civic culture built primarily on identity loyalty may discourage the very habits of mind that democratic self-government requires. If students are taught that questioning national myths is inherently unpatriotic, they may become less willing to examine the policies and institutions that shape their society.
The real question facing modern democracies is not whether students should love their country, but what kind of love education encourages: a love rooted in loyalty to national myths, or a love strong enough to confront uncomfortable truths. The difference between those two forms of patriotism may determine whether schools produce identity loyalists—or the critically thinking citizens that democratic societies ultimately require.
