Institution No. 3 that Failed in the 2016 Presidential Election: Education
Third in the triad that could have blocked Trump’s rise to power
It’s tempting to claim that American citizens failed in the 2016 presidential election because “We the People” elected a democracy wrecking ball to the highest office in the land. The people had the electoral power, and they used it self-destructively to elevate Donald Trump to the White House.
By this line of reasoning and causation, the voting public is to blame for the manifold harms Trump has inflicted upon our democracy.
An even more dire conclusion to draw from this logic is that if a free and fair election can place a violent authoritarian demagogue in the presidency, democracy has proved itself to to be a self-cannibalizing, suicidal form of government.
This insight from the Trump-MAGA era makes a citizen wonder, at least for a moment, if democracy is in fact the best system of government.
The responsible party for Trump’s electoral victory in 2016, however, is not the 62,979,879 voters who cast ballots for the fearmongering showman in the general election, tipping the Electoral College count in his direction.
It is a much larger number of Americans: All of us who tolerate the existence of a substandard education system that fails abysmally to teach students—of all ages, from K-12 through college—what democracy is, how it works, and what awesome powers and responsibilities we have towards our fellow citizens and government.
The third institution that failed the nation in 2016 is not the voting people, or democracy itself, but the U.S. education system. This essay is the last of three that examines how a dangerous demagogue like Trump came to executive power in the United States. The other two institutions that failed are the Republican Party and the Media.
“We the People”—let’s look in the mirror—are responsible for Trump’s destructive tear across the landscape of America because, by all appearances, we either do not understand that civics education is an essential violence-preventing component of democratic health or, if we do, we are grossly complacent about it.
In a peaceful constitutional democracy, citizens must always be striving to enhance, expand, and exalt civics education. The teaching of civics (defined as the study of the rights and duties of citizenship) is the lifeblood of democracy, without which this form of government deteriorates and dies.
The fundamental point I am making is not that all Americans must meet some arbitrary standard of education in order to participate in democracy either as voters or civic or political leaders.
Instead I am underscoring the power of striving and constant effort when it comes to filling the minds of Americans—of all ages, by all means possible—with history, literature, skepticism, critical thinking, altruism, love for one’s fellow citizens, and disdain for hatemongering, fearmongering, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny.
Such internalized civics education guiding the thinking and behavior of only several hundred thousand voters would have made the difference in the 2016 presidential election. That is all it would have taken to swing winner-take-all states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida to the Democratic column.
In that case, Hilary Clinton would have been inaugurated president of the United States on January 20, 2017.
A small investment in civics education in four or five states, centering on teaching students to counteract any politician who practices the base arts of demagoguery, would have easily turned the 2016 presidential election to Hilary Clinton.
Imagine the past seven years without the ravages of Trump.
Imagine a future of American civics education that places this field of inquiry and instruction on par with reading, writing, and math. Middle school, high school, and college students would learn from their teachers a golden rule of democracy: One of a citizen’s foremost duties is to actively oppose politicians who practice the dark arts of division, fearmongering, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny in order to gain fame and power.
That is the future I’m hoping for, and it is one “We the People” can unequivocally realize through striving and constant effort in the sacred realm of education.
For evidence that civics education is woefully lacking in the U.S., check out this article from the Brookings Institute and this one from American Bar Association.
Sign up for American Commonwealth
Upgrade to a paid subscription to support my work
This is such a powerful thought and as a teacher and parent myself, it hits home even though I'm not from the US. "All of us who tolerate the existence of a substandard education system that fails abysmally to teach students—of all ages, from K-12 through college—what democracy is, how it works, and what awesome powers and responsibilities we have towards our fellow citizens and government."