As the election approaches, the stakes of how and what children learn, what they see and hear from both Presidential candidates, couldn’t be more different and critical for the future of America’s children. Breaking it down for kids, one candidate is X-rated, and the other is fine for prime time!
For years, former President Trump’s behavior has created problems in how parents and teachers teach children good behavior and respect for one another. His vulgar ramblings often have nothing to do with policy.
The other candidate, VP Kamala Harris, reaches out to voters even if one has some policy differences and speaks respectfully. The TV can be left on when children are in the room. She appears to genuinely care about people.
There have been concerns about how Trump’s behavior affects America’s children and schools.
Anti-Public Schools
Trump said he’d defund public schools, democratic schools owned by Americans, if school officials don’t do as he says. How must this sound to a child who likes attending their public school?
His claims are often outlandish. He has accused teachers of doing sex change operations!
Has Donald Trump ever visited any public schools?
Arnold and Winnie Palmer Foundation
It would have been nice if Donald Trump had reminded people of the Arnold and Winnie Palmer Foundation’s tremendous impact on children’s and women’s health and other charities.
They have the Arnold Palmer Children’s Hospital where they also care deeply about children’s oncology, and the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies.
And they have a Neighborhood Naturalist program where families and children are excited to learn together about the world around them.
Discussing Palmer’s philanthropic work would have shined a light on women and children and their health and families.
Bullying
Trump has attacked so many with whom he disagrees that in 2021, Kevin Quealy wrote The Complete List of Trump’s Twitter Insults (2015-2021) for The New York Times. This was just twitter!
During the 2016 campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center noted in The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on Our Nation’s Schools:
Every student, from preschoolers up through high school, is aware of the tone, rhetoric and catchphrases of this particular campaign season. Students are hearing conversations at home. They’re chatting, posting and joking on social media. Whether teachers decide to bring it into the classroom or not, kids are talking about it, modeling their behavior on that of political candidates and bringing heightened emotion to school along with their backpacks.
The gains made by years of anti-bullying work in schools have been rolled back in a few short months. Teachers report that students have been “emboldened” to use slurs, engage in name-calling and make inflammatory statements toward each other. When confronted, students point to the candidates and claim they are “just saying what everyone is thinking.” Kids use the names of candidates as pejoratives to taunt each other.
Disabilities
As a special ed. teacher, who along with many disability advocates has worked to ensure the disability rights of children, it’s troubling to hear Trump mock disabled individuals using the long retired word retarded to describe Harris, not only belittling Harris but those with disabilities.
This is reminiscent of his mocking a disabled reporter in 2015.
Haitians
The Trump/Vance perpetuated myth that Haitians eat your pets harmed hard-working Haitians and others in the city of Springfield, Ohio. It created trouble where there was none. Children were affected by this in their schools, which had to be closed.
None of this was true, yet Trump appears with Gov. Kristi Noem who wrote about actually shooting her puppy because it didn’t behave!
Children of Immigrants
Instead of trying to address the needs of all God’s people, including and especially the children, while at the same time tackling the problems at the border, Trump casts fear and hatred. As President, numerous reports describe the anxiety unnecessarily created for children and their families.
A survey of Latinx students in 2016, Being a Latinx adolescent under a trump presidency: Analysis of Latinx youth’s reactions to immigration politics, highlights the fear and anxiety of marginalized youth with Trump.
Educators want better border security, but they also care about all children, including immigrants, and we worry about their fears and anxieties surrounding the negative light their families are put in as they strive to have a better life.
Teens
Trumpwords.org shows students trash talking with Trump’s words. Pick your topics on the site from women, racism, violence, lies, humility, insults, democracy, immigrants, military, free press, crisis response, and random talk.
How children make sense of politics, the negativity surrounding it, can shape the way they see their world for years to come.
A CNN experiment demonstrated this by showing how the polarizing effects of the election filtered down to 10 year olds. Children don’t only learn from Trump, they obviously learn from their parents.
An anthropologist and design researcher, Mica Pollack, a professor of education wrote about this phenomenon in 2016 in The Washington Post:
“Trump Talk” has unleashed a wave of explicit hate and intimidation for educators to address. And to have a presidential candidate unleash such talk — especially without reproach from many powerful politicians — sets an extremely confusing example.
U.S. Department of Education
His lack of understanding of what the U.S. Department of Education does, ensuring the rights of children and disabilities in their schools with IDEA, assisting poor students when it comes to Title I, and helping students attend college is troubling.
This seems to indicate he will follow Project 2025.
The U.S. Department of Education could be improved, but ending it will change the lives of many children and the nature of public schooling.
Violence
In a free country where we can say pretty much what we think without repercussions, Donald Trump portrays opponents as enemies from within and preaches and endorses violence.
What must a child think to hear that January 6th was a day of love, confusing messages which cause grave concern.
VP Kamala Harris reaches out across party lines. She supports all Americans.
Women and Marginalized People
His distain for women by his making vulgar comments, and the idea that he’s a protector when he removes their rights, and degrading comments regarding people of color and all marginalized people, has set us back when it comes to supporting women’s rights and diversity in America.
Young Children
There are many examples of Trumps vulgarities and cruelty and they appear to be increasing. Here’s a recent example involving a 6-year-old.
The Hill reports:
In a recorded video, the child asked the Republican candidate [former President Trump] about his favorite farm animal.
“I’ll tell you what I love, I love cows, but if we go with Kamala, you won’t have any cows anymore,” the former president responded to the child’s question. “I don’t want to ruin this kid’s day.”
He then called Harris a “radical left lunatic.”
What must children think?
Later he called her a s–t Vice President!
______
Is this how we want our children and youth to behave? How do Trump supporters rationalize this concerning behavior with what’s appropriate behavior for children?
So, ask if they’re elected, who will be the candidate that strives to make life better for Americans, including our children? Who will be the President to promote change to unite Americans? Who is more likely to work towards world peace and to address the problems like climate change that will affect children for years to come?
And who will describe their problem solving in a way that is not X-rated but fine for prime time?
I think the answer is clear, that it is VP Kamala Harris who will continue to keep the eyes and ears and the futures of children in mind.
Reference
Quealy, K. (2021, January 9). The Complete List of Trump’s Twitter Insults (2015-2021). The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/19/upshot/trump-complete-insult-list.html
Francesca says
Thank you for this. I’m going to forward it to my Republican sister.
Nancy Bailey says
You’re welcome.
Cathryn Ory says
I understood all of this about Trump before he was elected in 2016. Unfortunately, I am afraid that you might be preaching to the converted. How will we reach those who are still undecided, if any? I have been hesitant to talk to people I know who are Trump supporters because they immediately become defensive. I can’t believe this is happening in America.
Nancy Bailey says
Thanks, Cathryn. I’m afraid of that too, but felt the need to say it again. It’s hard to believe. You’re right.
Paul Bonner says
Trump has created a permission structure that would have been unheard of a decade ago. His trash talk is more like that of a third grader. It isn’t particularly cleaver, but mainstream and social media seem to lap it up. In the spring of 2017, I read the presidential letter and gave the designated award as I had for years before. When I began the letter that spring, a chorus of boos came down. I quickly pivoted and responded that this isn’t about a politician but the office of the President. everything settled down and many thanked me afterward. I would do the same today. The MAGA movement has revealed an ugliness in our country I would have never foreseen. If Trump were to lose, this will remain. We have to refocus on our day to day as communities, especially in schools, if we want this sickness to retreat.
Nancy Bailey says
Thanks, Paul. It’s constantly stunning and scary to hear the rhetoric from Trump and his cronies and the lack of push back by people. Especially worrisome to see some in the media normalize this behavior.