Last week, the Trump White House hosted PragerU CEO Marissa Streit to launch a patriotic exhibit called “The Founders Museum,” a joint effort involving the White House, PragerU, and the Department of Education. That seems a rather odd thing for an “antigovernment extremist group” to do, yet that’s exactly the label the Southern Poverty Law Center applies to PragerU. According to the SPLC, this nonprofit best known for its five-minute educational videos secretly works to “protect white supremacy” and belongs on a “hate map” with chapters of America’s most notorious hate group, the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC’s ire against PragerU comes as no surprise. After all, the SPLC has a long track record of putting mainstream conservative and Christian nonprofits on its “hate map,” and PragerU’s videos spread far and wide, encouraging Americans to defend family values, free markets, systems based on merit rather than identity—in short, the virtues of America. This patriotism explains why PragerU is celebrating America’s 250th anniversary at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, so why does the SPLC hate it so much? SPLC’s Beef With PragerU As I wrote in my book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC gained its reputation by suing Klan groups into bankruptcy. Now, it uses a “hate map” to suggest that mainstream conservative nonprofits are somehow akin to the KKK. This map inspired a terrorist attack in 2012. We're going through something similar to the Protestant Reformation and the Wars of Religion afterward, I tell @prageru's @marissastreit.The Left's NGOs are rebranding the woke revolution, and the SPLC is trying to prevent anyone from stopping it.https://t.co/u7MRZJohrv https://t.co/hPIUANVxnl pic.twitter.com/zarjPlm8B2— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) June 17, 2025 Back in 2018, the SPLC insinuated that PragerU has connections to the alt-right movement, even while admitting that PragerU published a video condemning the alt-right. Dennis Prager—who has been recovering in the hospital as the SPLC attacks him—eviscerated this disgusting attack at the time. When the SPLC added PragerU to the “hate map” in May, it also published its “Year in Hate and Extremism” report, which mentions PragerU in two sections—the “anti-student inclusion movement” and the opposition to the Left’s diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda. “In 2024, [DEI] initiatives became ground zero for hard-right mobilizations to whitewash American society and protect white supremacy,” wrote SPLC research analysts Maya Henson Carey and R.G. Cravens. Carey and Cravens frame DEI as “essential in ensuring pluralism … and promoting democracy.” Such programs “promote teaching accurate histories of American inequalities as structural.” This sentence smuggles in the notion of critical race theory, which teaches that American society is fundamentally unjust and oppressive against certain races, classes, LGBTQ identities, and more. Critical race theory inspired The New York Times’ 1619 Project, which attempted to redefine America’s Founding—placing the real beginning of America with the arrival of the first slaves, rather than the signing of the Declaration of Independence. PragerU naturally disagrees with this. Yes, America has struggled to live up to the ideals of the declaration, but critical race theory effectively denies the real progress of abolishing slavery and defending civil rights. It also encourages Americans to judge each other by the color of their skin, not the content of their character. “The antigovernment group PragerU calls DEI ‘an affront to America’s core values’ that must be ‘cast … into the dustbin of history alongside all the other racist and discredited ideas of the past,'” the SPLC noted. Right-thinking Americans agree with PragerU on this score. Fighting the Left’s Takeover of Education The SPLC also attacked PragerU as part of an “anti-student inclusion movement” including Moms for Liberty (which has been on the “hate map” since 2023). The SPLC uses this framing to suggest that the parental rights movement is the aggressor in the cultural battles over education, while conveniently ignoring the Left’s ideological seizure of the classroom. In fact, the SPLC runs its own program—long called “Teaching Tolerance” but now rebranded as “Learning for Justice”—pushing critical race theory, transgender identity, and other leftist social causes in schools. The retreat away from tolerance is instructive. When the parental rights movement calls for putting an end to classes teaching that blacks are inherently oppressed and whites inherently oppressors, for removing pornographic books from school libraries, and for parental opt-outs to LGBTQ lessons, the SPLC says that amounts to “promoting far-right ideological narratives.” The SPLC claimed that PragerU is a “significant actor in this disinformation ecosystem,” and that it “specializes in promoting far-right propaganda through professionally produced media.” “Critics have accused PragerU materials of promoting nationalism, anti-DEI narratives and the whitewashing of historical events as patriotic education,” the SPLC noted. “These narratives play into broader moral panic campaigns that portray public schools as battlegrounds for the nation’s cultural future.” So, SPLC’s attack on PragerU boils down to two things: PragerU fights the SPLC’s woke agenda in schools, and PragerU loves America too much. By claiming that PragerU’s great sin is being insufficiently negative about America’s history and telling kids about the virtues of our Founding, the SPLC effectively admits there’s really nothing to justify PragerU’s presence on the “hate map.” Americans should be grateful that PragerU, not the SPLC, is advising the White House’s celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. The post Why Is PragerU on a ‘Hate Map’? Because It Loves America’s Founding Too Much appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Foreign Affairs The Standard of Proof for an Iran War Has Not Been Met Foreign policy should not rest on fairy tales. Credit: Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images “This time is different,” the interventionists argue. They may be right. But given the pattern of recent history—and the stakes of the decision—we should hold them to the highest standard of proof. So far, they are failing the test. First, many of the people arguing for the United States to join offensive operations against Iran are exactly the same ones who dragged us into the Iraq war over 20 years ago. That alone should raise red flags. Second, they haven’t even bothered to change their arguments. Once again, a country in the Middle East whose name starts with an “i” is apparently on the verge of acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The leadership in this faraway land is evil and psychotic and has said mean things about America. The danger is imminent and there is no time to debate. We need to saddle up and take them down before it is too late. We will then sit back and wait as a friendly and democratic government takes shape. We are all fond of fairy tales, but foreign policy should rest on a firmer foundation. Any serious argument for American military intervention must clearly address three key questions: First, what danger does the Iranian regime actually pose to the United States? Not to Israel, not to vaguely defined American interests abroad—but to the physical security of the homeland. It is conceivable that the United States might decide to use military force to advance interests not directly related to its domestic security, but if that is the case, then it should be clearly stated that the safety of American citizens is not immediately at stake. Second, if it could be established that Iran did pose a direct threat to the United States, then how, precisely, would American military intervention lead to greater U.S. security in the long term? Eliminating one danger only to face several more is not an effective algorithm. If you can’t kill the hydra, don’t start chopping off heads. Finally, if we somehow agreed that the Iranian regime posed a real threat to the United States, and that American military intervention would decrease that danger by some degree, we would then need to consider how much the effort would cost. Factoring in worst-case scenarios, how much blood, money, and time might we have to expend to meet minimum objectives? It is a banality that benefits should outweigh costs. It is also a baseline requirement. If an Iran interventionist fails to answer these three questions, change the channel. The fairy tales are better on Disney. The post The Standard of Proof for an Iran War Has Not Been Met appeared first on The American Conservative.