The Trump conundrum: can we criticize the president and still welcome ideological diversity?
Four and a half years ago, I wrote a piece that caused a stir (well, at least within the tiny network in which it circulated). I find myself returning now to that piece, wondering whether it reads differently after the passage of a presidential term and realizing that the questions I ponder daily first presented themselves as I wrote it.
Is it possible for an educator to criticize the words or actions of the president—or a candidate for president, or any other aspiring leader—and still foster a learning environment that welcomes ideological or political diversity? Can we be surgical in our commentary, by critiquing one aspect of a leader’s messaging while still encouraging the support of other elements of that official’s platform? In other words, is there room for complexity, or must we be reduced to either “supporting” or “opposing” the entirety of a candidate or official’s personality and platform? Does reserving a critique—maintaining silence—marginalize some students (or is it now more appropriate to ask whether reserving such a critique has marginalized many of our students in many of our schools)?
Recently, I watched a webinar in which presenters openly criticized President Trump’s campaign to discredit the results of the presidential election, and I was struck by how direct the condemnation was. The webinar was facilitated by an organization that wanted no part of my writing piece four and a half years ago. Has something changed? Would the directness of my writing seem less inflammatory or controversial these days?
I wrote the piece as a conversation with my students, although I did not necessarily intend to share it with them. And in the end, I did not. I worried about violating the oath of impartiality, and I still believe firmly in the conventional wisdom that we educators should remain nonpartisan in the classroom. But does that mean we should also be amoral? And do we really lack the will or dexterity to help students see that the objectionable rhetoric of a single man does not by extension impugn a whole political party?
For those with time on their hands, I include the piece below, with the hope that readers will share their thoughts with me by dropping a note in the “contact” section of this website. Is there a place, in a school that genuinely wishes to honor ideological differences, for this sort of direct talk? We need to figure this out together.
March 4, 2016
Dear Students,
I recently spoke to you about a Holocaust survivor who used to visit. She was tiny and understated, but when she spoke, the weight of her courage and resilience and overwhelming moral clarity settled down from above. She always left us with a single request: that we act in the face of injustice. This is a message I have dispensed throughout many years of teaching, but it is my turn to speak up.
Civility—common courtesy, you might say—is in short supply in this presidential campaign, and insults have filled the vacuum. Mr. Trump, in particular, has been a reliable source of vitriol. There was a time when I joined the majority of the country in laughing off Mr. Trump’s antics, but I’m not laughing anymore. As his popularity grows—and as we adults fail to weigh in on the matter—I worry that you might start to think that this sort of discourse is becoming the accepted norm. Well, at least as far as your school is concerned, it is not. Our school’s mission guides you toward respectful communication, and you should be proud of your ongoing commitment to maintaining the highest standards of respect as you interact with the world. As you look for examples of respectful communication, though, look beyond the presidential campaign. Because at the moment you will not find respect modeled by some of our nation’s most visible, aspiring leaders.
Note, too, the growing ease with which many Americans openly fear, or demonize, or just disparage, the “other.” We teachers work constantly to stretch your perception of those with whom you have little contact, but this seems to be precisely the opposite approach to the one Mr. Trump has taken on the campaign trail. Those who like Mr. Trump tend to resolutely praise his frankness; they believe he speaks the plain truth. On this count, though, I beg to differ. Mr. Trump tells people what they wish were true, and, in that respect, he reminds me of other, dangerous, charismatic leaders who have indulged wishful thinking. The most insidious of these claims, as far as I am concerned, is that the “outsiders” are to blame for our troubles.
Mr. Trump is now appealing to the simplistic stereotypes that many Americans harbor, particularly about immigrants. His proposals appear to run in direct opposition to the values I have heard you articulate here at school. In your history class, you consider what it means to be American, and you have generally suggested that freedoms, rights, liberties lie at the center of the American identity. You are all well aware—perhaps more so than Mr. Trump—of the protection the First Amendment places on freedom of religion.
Mr. Trump has not just stirred mistrust of Muslims, but of foreigners in general, regardless of religion. His rhetoric models a form of disrespect that is antithetical to our school’s core principles. We don’t just tolerate diversity. We celebrate it. We honor it. We bring in performances to bolster our exposure to other cultures. We learn languages. We unearth differing points of view. We talk about race and gender, and we celebrate diverse family structures. Building cultural competence is central to our school’s mission. So, to be clear, I’m trying to show you that there is a mismatch between Mr. Trump’s comments and your school’s core philosophy. But, I must say that I am alarmed for reasons that stretch beyond that mismatch.
To understand that, we need to get back to our visitor, the tiny woman who survived five different concentration camps. Before the Holocaust, even before World War Two broke out, there was unhappiness in Germany. Germans had troubles, and they looked for solutions. One political party, known as the Nazis, promised to bring strong leadership to the ailing country. Some Germans, as Facing History and Ourselves wrote in Holocaust and Human Behavior, “…liked the Nazis’ message. It was patriotic… and energetic.” That message relied heavily on portraying the “outsider” as a danger to the country. The first Nazi party platform included a proposal to ban immigration entirely. “Outsiders” were to be feared. The seeds of mistrust were being planted.
People tend to think of the Nazis as a malignant growth that suddenly appeared on the German body, metastasizing into an uncontrollable sickness that overtook the nation. In fact, they were elected, fair and square, as a consequence of the German suffering and outrage that lingered well after World War One. Nazis won seats in the legislature, and Hitler was later appointed Chancellor of Germany. Once in power, Hitler did not spring the Holocaust on Germany all at once. Instead, he moved gradually, incrementally, to restrict the rights of Jews in Germany. They couldn’t vote… they couldn’t gather together without a Nazi overseer… bit by bit, Jews lost their rights, and at no time was German society shocked into outrage and action to oppose these moves. This was the legacy that our friend, the Holocaust survivor, thought about daily when she urged us to speak up in the face of injustice.
Last year, as spring sunlight streamed into our dining room, a colleague asked me over lunch whether I thought the Holocaust could ever happen again. I was undecided. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that the moral arc of the universe “bends toward justice.” Most of us would suppose that, in the decades since the Holocaust, we have evolved as a civilization, that, even if we are not at peace, we are at least less likely to succumb to utter barbarism on the scale of the Holocaust; we have proceeded farther along the moral arc of the universe. Perhaps. In her book, I promised I Would Tell, Holocaust survivor Sonia Weitz warned, “Those of us who survived that other universe where darkness was almost complete have an obligation to warn you, because we know that under the right conditions it can happen again, anywhere, to any people.”
I sometimes wonder if my curriculum is like an obscure constellation that remains slightly out of focus to you; I sprinkle points of light throughout the year, hoping you will connect the dots. In the fall, we asked you to lead younger students through a role-play in which you empowered them to act as upstanders. I evoked that word—upstander—again recently while discussing the integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. Did you connect those two discussions? Will you then, on your own, draw a line to the film Freedom Riders? In it, a reporter asks a young, white man why he thinks it’s his responsibility to press for equality. “I think it’s every American’s responsibility,” answers the young man. “I only think that some are more conscious of their responsibility than others.” I wonder: have we Americans lost sight of our responsibilities? As you navigate your universe, we are here to help you find the constellations that will guide you. After all, morality is not infinitely subjective, and we teachers need to help you connect the dots so that you can continue, with compassion, on your journey.
If King was right that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, it is also true that it doesn’t bend that way by itself.
