Actor Kelsey Grammer is raising concerns about the direction of American education, warning that people who are not taught the country’s founding history may be easier to influence and control.
During an appearance Tuesday on “Planet Tyrus,” Grammer said the U.S. education system needs a serious reset. He also pushed back on those who reduce the Founding Fathers to “old White guys in wigs,” arguing that such dismissals ignore the significance of their ideas and actions.
“If you don’t know where you come from, you don’t know who you are. If you don’t know who you are, you can be controlled,” Grammer warned.
“There’s a whole bunch of things that just have got to stop with our educational system, and we got to retool it. There’s no question,” he said.
Grammer recently appeared in the film “Young Washington,” which focuses on George Washington’s life before he became America’s first president. He also hosted Fox Nation’s six-part series “The Patriot War,” which revisits pivotal moments from the American Revolution as the country approaches its 250th anniversary.
The former “Frasier” and “Cheers” star said he views the nation’s history as a guide for what comes next, but believes too many young Americans are being encouraged to disregard it.
“Yeah, I’m pretty tired of the old White guy in [a] wig thing,” Grammer told Tyrus. “I mean Thomas Jefferson was 33 when he wrote what is arguably the most important political document in the history of man,” he said.
Grammer argued that the American Revolution was driven by bold principles rather than identity politics, and said schools should place a renewed emphasis on teaching the nation’s earliest history.
“It never had anything to do with the way you looked,” Grammer said. “It had everything to do with the way you thought and the way you dreamed, and that’s all America.”
He argued the Founding Fathers did not claim America would be perfect but envisioned an evolving quest for better.
“The land of the possible. Yeah, absolutely. It’s always [going to] fall a little short, but that’s just it. It’s the world of becoming. We’re becoming a more perfect union, always, rather than we just are one,” Grammer said.
Grammer said that most of the 56 people who signed the Declaration of Independence “ended in ruin” by sacrificing everything for the nation. He added, “Some of their children were murdered, some of their wives were raped,” and said their spirit of resilience in hard times remains today.
“They paid the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate one. And they would probably do it again. And I think that sort of character is what still is in most of us. I believe in America that way,” Grammer said.
