For over a decade, Donald Trump has been dominating the political spotlight. An entire generation of children has grown up hearing what comes out of his mouth: the good, the bad, and the ugly (heavy on the ugly). They have watched their parents cheer as Trump and his MAGA coalition enact legislation and sign executive orders to cause real harm to people. They have seen the most marginalized among us treated as if they are not human beings, and they have seen copious amounts of apathy and hatred. This generation is growing up with warped views on democracy, virtue, justice, integrity, success, and morality. A generation of tiny Trumpers is coming of age in a system that prioritizes profits over people, and that views the broken windows of a chain coffee shop as violence but a woman shot dead in the street for protesting the gutting of civil rights as her own fault.
The consequences of some of Trump’s words and actions are now being seen, while others won’t be seen for quite some time. The gutting of funding for research and scientific inquiry comes to mind.
To be fair, Trump didn’t invent any of this, but he is surely accelerating the collapse of what is left of our society while normalizing the way we treat people who disagree with us. The fabric of our nation has been woven with the blood, sweat, and tears of the people this nation has oppressed to get to where we are today. What Trump is doing is not new; he is merely a racist and bigot with a platform and millions of people who never question what he says. Trump is loud, not just on social media, with the random capitalized words and exclamation points, but everywhere. “America First” is the MAGA rallying cry, and they do not care that to be first, someone else has to be last, even if it is their neighbor.
Those of us who are not part of the MAGA ilk must also be teachers and teach the paradox of tolerance. A society cannot tolerate all behaviors without limits, or it will be overtaken by the intolerant. As philosopher Karl Popper articulated: “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.” We are now in that moment when we must decide how much intolerance we will tolerate.
Thankfully, we have help. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has a project called “Teaching Tolerance,” aimed at reducing prejudice and supporting equitable school experiences for children. Teaching tolerance to children is obviously important, but what Donald Trump has done, and is still currently doing, is teaching adults and children alike that those who do not support him or his policies are anti-American. The MAGA folk have taken the concept of tolerance and perverted it to suit their own selfish needs. It is a white supremacist view of tolerance, which is why Trump got rid of DEI, and never mind that most of his followers don’t understand how DEI works.
The SPLC collected a massive amount of data from teachers during the 2016 presidential campaign. It found that more than two-thirds of teachers reported that minority students had expressed concerns or fears about what might happen to them or their families after the election. More than half of teachers had seen an increase in uncivil discourse. More than one-third had observed an increase in anti-Muslim or anti-immigrant sentiment. Teachers also noted an increase in bullying, harassment, and intimidation of students whose races, religions, or nationalities were the verbal targets of Donald Trump.
In the age of Donald Trump, a man who is intolerant, teaching tolerance is an uphill battle. Several research institutes, along with FBI crime statistics, show a surge in hate crimes during the Trump era, up to 20% higher than in previous years. Several studies draw a straight line from Trump to this surge, with counties that hosted a Trump rally during the 2016 election seeing hate crimes more than double compared to similar counties that had no Trump presence. If Trump wanted to lower crime, as he often claims, the best way to do that would be to leave the public realm. The COVID-19 pandemic was yet another example of Trump’s racism having a nationwide effect. By constantly and continually calling it the “China virus,” the number of hate crimes against Asian-Americans exploded.
The old Republican Party made big claims about protecting children and being pro-life, and the new MAGA Party followed suit. The claims were bogus, of course, because being pro-life just means being pro-forced birth, and protecting children means indoctrinating them with an America-first white Christian nationalist viewpoint. This is why there is always a push to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, not the Beatitudes (eight blessings recounted by Jesus in the Bible’s Sermon on the Mount).
The parents, whether they realize it or not, are raising a generation of children who will grow up devoid of empathy. What the Trump administration and the capitalists who pushed for it have done is tell people that in order for them to succeed, someone else must fail. For them to prosper, someone must flounder. For a person to have a good life, someone else must suffer for it.
For over a decade, a schoolyard bully has occupied the nation’s collective consciousness. Slurs, harassment, and threats are lauded as strength, while empathy, integrity, and morality are weak. Instead of placing them in classrooms, the Beatitudes would be better suited to the White House.
As with all op-eds published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.
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