Dos meses después de que el Departamento de Educación abriera oficialmente sus puertas en 1980, los republicanos aprobaron una plataforma política que pedía al Congreso cerrarlo.

Ahora, más de cuatro décadas después, el presidente Trump puede estar más cerca que cualquier otro presidente republicano de hacer realidad ese sueño.

Aunque eliminar la agencia requeriría una ley del Congreso, Trump se ha dedicado a ese objetivo y se dice que está preparando una orden ejecutiva con el objetivo de desmantelarla.

La fijación de Trump ha revigorizado el debate sobre el papel del gobierno federal en la educación, creando un poderoso punto de unidad entre las facciones ideológicas de su partido: los republicanos tradicionales del establishment y los partidarios acérrimos de su movimiento Make America Great Again.

“Esta es una contrarrevolución contra una burocracia hostil y nihilista”, dijo Christopher F. Rufo, miembro destacado del centro de estudios conservador Manhattan Institute y miembro del consejo del New College de Florida.

Así es como la fiesta llegó a este momento.

Los conservadores exponen sus argumentos.

Desde el principio, los republicanos se opusieron a que el presidente Jimmy Carter firmara una ley de 1979 que creaba el departamento, citando creencias en un control gubernamental limitado, responsabilidad fiscal y autonomía local.

Argumentaron que la educación debería gestionarse principalmente a nivel estatal y local, en lugar de a través de mandatos federales.

Un año después, Ronald Reagan ganó la Casa Blanca, su tercer intento por llegar a la presidencia, gracias a la promesa de que pondría freno a un gobierno federal que, según él, había sobrepasado sus límites en una miríada de cuestiones, incluida la educación. En 1982, Reagan utilizó su discurso sobre el Estado de la Unión para pedir al Congreso que eliminara dos agencias: el Departamento de Energía y el Departamento de Educación.

“Debemos recortar más gastos gubernamentales no esenciales y erradicar más despilfarro, y continuaremos nuestros esfuerzos para reducir el número de empleados en la fuerza laboral federal”, dijo Reagan.

He was unable to persuade Democrats in control of the House to go along with his plan, and the issue started to fade as a top priority for Republicans — but never quite disappeared.

Newt Gingrich, then the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, called for the abolition of the agency in the mid-1990s. In the 2008 Republican presidential primary, both Representative Ron Paul and former Gov. Mitt Romney supported either terminating the Education Department or drastically reducing its size.

Last year, a proposal to eliminate the agency was voted down in the Republican-controlled House despite a strong majority within the party, as 161 Republicans supported the measure while 60 opposed it.

The Education Department’s primary role has been sending federal money to public schools, administering college financial aid and managing federal student loans. The agency enforces civil rights laws in schools and supports programs for students with disabilities.

“The history of the Education Department is as a civil rights agency, the place that ensures that students with disabilities get the services they need, that English-learners get the help they need,” John B. King Jr., who served as education secretary during the Obama administration and is now chancellor of the State University of New York, told reporters on Thursday. “Taking that away harms students and families.”

Trump reinvigorates the debate.

Mr. Trump rarely mentioned education during his first presidential campaign in 2016, other than to criticize Common Core standards, which aimed to create some consistency across states. He did occasionally call for eliminating the Education Department, though his administration did not make it a focus.

But Mr. Trump is adept at seizing on issues that resonate with his conservative base. During his 2024 campaign, that meant adopting the concerns of the parents’ rights movement that grew out of the backlash to school shutdowns and other restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic.

That movement gained steam by organizing around opposition to progressive agendas that promoted mandating certain education standards and inclusive policies for L.G.B.T.Q. students. Activists contended that these policies undermined parental rights and values.

In that way, Mr. Trump’s desire to eliminate the Education Department became intertwined with his focus on eradicating diversity, equity and inclusion programs from the federal government, a dynamic that has played out vividly through his purge of personnel and policies at the agency in the weeks since his return to office.

In a draft of an executive order aimed at dismantling the department that circulated in Washington this week, Mr. Trump’s only specific instructions for Education Secretary Linda McMahon were to terminate any remaining diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

On Mr. Trump’s campaign website, he criticizes gender or transgender issues eight times in his list of 10 principles for “great schools.”

“One reason this issue has so much momentum was definitely the pandemic and the populist frustration that Washington was not on the side of parents,” said Frederick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “The Department of Education really became emblematic of a lot of what was going on that was wrong.”

Project 2025 called for dismantling the department, too.

A multitude of Mr. Trump’s actions during his first six weeks in office were hinted at in Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for overhauling the federal government.

This includes an excoriation of the Education Department, which is pilloried in the foreword of the 992-page document for being staffed by workers who “inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms.”

The document maintains that schools should be responsive to parents rather than “leftist advocates intent on indoctrination,” and that student test scores have not improved despite 45 years of federal spending. But it does not explain how that might change by giving more power to state and local school districts, which have spent exponentially more on education during that same time.

“This department is an example of federal intrusion into a traditionally state and local realm,” the Project 2025 blueprint reads. “For the sake of American children, Congress should shutter it and return control of education to the states.”