Presidential rankings by historians

I had heard some of that, but few details. Still, it makes sense.

There are many other big factors as well.

In my mind, probably the biggest problem is that the people in general have come to believe that government should be in charge of education. Once government schools (usually we know mistakenly called public schools) became the norm, textbooks and material becomes the domain of bureaucrats rather than teachers. The net result often is simply that by constantly telling WHY government did something and that it was for the best, it ends up glorifying government and teaching children to believe that is the only way.

Then, during the past few decades, particularly WW2 and its immediate aftermath, the Hollywood WW2 propaganda machine has completely altered modern history. We are never told that we supported history's most brutal regime over one that despite being another of history's worst, could never have hoped to defeat USSR and Britain at the same time. It even fails to mention that conquering Britain would have been impossible for the Germans (USSR alone, slight chance as Stalin had purged his good generals). It falsly overblows German "technology" (How much Hollywood film was promoted to a few thousand high tech Panzers that incidentally were torn up by lower tech Soviet tanks, but never bothers to show the hundreds of thousands of horses that carried most German supplies?) etc. etc.

Only after the war is almost over do most Americans realize we had supported such a brutal regime.

And the list goes on and on.

The net result is generation after generation of students growing up being taught only statist views.

I suspect that in this regard of the one two punch of government education and entertainment, even without a deliberate effort, history education would become predominately statist.