Xi Van Fleet, a woman who lived through Mao’s Cultural Revolution, went on Fox & Friends Weekend to sound a clear alarm about rising Chinese influence in American schools and what she called a broader threat of communism taking root in our institutions. Her warning was not abstract; it came from someone who remembers posters denouncing teachers, children turned into informants, and a regime that made obedience a civic duty.
Van Fleet’s personal story is stark and undeniable: sent to the countryside as a teenager, schooled under Maoist doctrine, and ultimately finding refuge in America, she now travels the country warning citizens to recognize the signs of ideological subversion. She has authored work and appeared at events to explain how totalitarian movements co-opt language, institutions, and schools to remake a nation from the inside out.
Her comparison between Critical Race Theory, DEI programs, and the tactics she lived through in Mao’s China is not mere hyperbole — it’s a blunt eyewitness account that should make every parent sit up and pay attention. Van Fleet told a Loudoun County school board and national audiences that what she saw then is eerily mirrored by the way students are being divided and told to denounce teachers and history today. Conservatives should stop treating this as partisan theater and start treating it as a national security threat.
We should be blunt: the woke industrial complex is using the same playbook that always precedes tyranny — divide, shame, silence dissent, and monopolize moral authority. Progressive elites who cheer these programs are playing with the same fire that destroyed lives under Mao, and their experiments in identity politics are shredding the civic fabric that binds us as Americans. Parents, patriots, and school boards must reclaim our classrooms before a generation is lost to ideological indoctrination.
Van Fleet didn’t just talk about curriculum; she also criticized policy decisions that make America more vulnerable to foreign influence, including comments about admitting massive numbers of mainland students without sober national-security vetting. Her concern about access to technology, ideas, and potential influence operations is the kind of common-sense caution Washington too often ignores until it’s too late.
If we believe in American liberty, we must act: schools should ban coercive identity-based curricula, Congress should investigate foreign influence in education, and state legislatures must demand transparency about who funds what in our classrooms. That’s not xenophobia — it’s patriotism. It’s the obligation of every citizen to ensure our children are taught to love this country, not to view it as irredeemably evil.
This is a moment for boldness, not denial. Xi Van Fleet’s testimony is a gift to the American right — a living reminder that freedom is fragile and that the lessons of history are not optional. Roll up your sleeves, go to school board meetings, vote for leaders who will defend our values, and demand curricula that teach truth, not tribalism. Our children and our Republic depend on it.
