The greatest lie(s) ever told: Rush Limbaugh and the white supremacist blueprint in middle grades historical fiction

Abstract

U.S. libraries and classrooms are under siege by private and governmental entities working to simultaneously ban/remove justice-focused literature and inundate these spaces with reactionary/ultra-conservative materials. It is within this educational crisis that we conducted a critical content analysis of the award-winning, best-selling historical fiction series, Rush Revere: Time Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans by Rush Limbaugh. The analysis worked to answer two central research questions: How does the Rush Revere series promote white lies about U.S. history? and What curricular violence is enacted through the Rush Revere series? Findings illuminate how each book individually centralizes an aspect of white supremacy—exceptionalism, capitalism, militarism, patriotism, paternalism—that collectively then creates the infrastructure to indoctrinate young readers into white supremacist ideology.