Education

Trump’s Refusal To Concede Spotlights Importance Of Civic Education


The aftermath of the 2020 presidential election has featured President Trump’s absurd, alarming refusal to acknowledge defeat. It’s made me think that those of us who recall election night 2000 and the Florida recount never fully appreciated that even the meanest moments of that ugly, knockdown fight were constrained by a respect for the rules, which is what kept things from going off the rails. Indeed, the 2020 election is a powerful reminder that civic education is about much more than urging students to vote.  

As we’re seeing daily, the bulwark of free government is canvassing boards in Michigan that are willing to review vote tallies and ensure that elections were free and fair, without regard to their preferred outcome. It’s election officials in Georgia doing a rule-bound recount, even when partisans storm and complain. It’s judges demanding evidence to support assertions of fraudulent conduct. It’s Republican election officials in deep blue states and Democratic officials in red ones being willing to make the process work and defend its legitimacy even when, year after year, they know they’ll be disappointed by the results. While all of this is foundational to our way of life, it’s too often sidelined in civic education that’s caught up in the stuff of voice, voting, and protest.

Speaking as a once-upon-a-time high school civics teacher, I heartily believe that civic education should encourage participation. Telling students to support their favorite candidates or causes is important. It’s also pretty intuitive. What can get lost in translation is that free nations also rely on norms and habits of mind that are less intuitive and less gratifying. After all, we’re seeing that ending Trump’s fever dreams is requiring Republican officials to help slam the door on them, even in the knowledge that this will infuriate a chunk of their supporters, usher in policies they find troubling, and win little appreciation from those who’ve judged Republicans as a bunch of deplorables.

That kind of democratic behavior requires fealty to something much larger than one’s political preferences. It requires an abiding commitment to our system of self-government and the republican norms that undergird it. At least three of these norms have come to mind as we’ve watched the developments of the past few weeks: the conviction that laws should be uniformly applied, an appreciation for checks and balances, and the confidence that victories and defeats are never final.

Laws that apply to some must apply to all. The expectation that laws should be applied uniformly—and that leaders will be subject to the same laws as everyone else—is integral to a healthy democracy. The expectation that those in power will live under the laws they make can temper the urge to wield authority in punitive ways, especially when lawmakers contemplate a day when they’re no longer in power. The notion that laws are universal lends them legitimacy and encourages citizens to abide by them. When laws are applied unevenly or unfairly, as in the case of criminal justice practices illuminated by this summer’s protests, it calls their validity into question. This is doubly true when public officials seem to apply different standards to their friends and their foes. In an era when public officials on both the left and right offer plentiful examples of flagrant hypocrisy and double-standards, it’s vitally important that students learn that democratic government is about principle as well as power.

Checks and balances ensure that elections are not winners-take-all. Elected officials in the U.S. are checked by the design of Congress, competing branches of government, Constitutional strictures, federalism, and more. The very structure of our government preempts cries of despotism and dampens the impulse to deny the legitimacy of elections when it seems that everything is on the line. For all the concerns about the depredations of the Trump administration, its ability to significantly alter policy on immigration, health care, spending, and much else has been sharply curtailed by these arrangements. Imagine how much more desperate, furious, and violent our divisions would be right now if voters were convinced that Trump could unilaterally outlaw abortion or Biden could start his tenure by ordering the police to start confiscating handguns. Of course, when one supports those in power, constraints can seem frustrating—even illegitimate. But students should understand that the same “anti-democratic” impediments they’re tempted to bemoan may, under other circumstances, seem like an invaluable defense against the forces of malice.

Citizens can be confident that democratic defeats are never final. Modern democracies require free citizens to honor many rules, regulations, and laws that they may find objectionable, even as they seek to change them. That citizens do so with little coercion and a lot of cooperation is essential to civic health and community well-being. Citizens are far more amenable to this arrangement when they can have faith that their concerns will be heard, that wrongs may be righted, and that officials they oppose will not be in power forever. Those assurances prompt citizens frustrated by certain governmental policies or practices to channel their anger into peaceful protest and political mobilization. They will do so, however, only if sufficiently confident that the rules are fair, that officials will accept defeat gracefully, and that power will change hands peacefully. Absent those things, civic cooperation and peaceful protest start to feel like a sucker’s game. The more some citizens feel they’ll never have a chance to win, the greater the chance they’ll start to bridle at the civic compact.

A participation-centric approach to civic education that emphasizes what citizens must do to get their way tends to slight the reality that we frequently won’t get our way and can give students the sense that it’s somehow illegitimate when they don’t. In a nation as sprawling, dynamic, and diverse as ours, many citizens will be disappointed after any given election. That’s inevitable and normal. Civics education must help students understand this reality and the safeguards that protect us when our preferred candidates lose.   

Over the years, I’ve talked with plenty of left-leaning teachers who decried Republican “obstruction” during President Obama’s tenure only to celebrate Democratic “resistance” during President Trump’s. And I’ve spoken with conservative educators who lambasted Obama’s executive activism only to rationalize Trump’s. This kind of hypocrisy, grounded in our preferred policies and politicos, is a dangerous habit. It’s doubly so for educators.

We must teach students that the habits and institutions of democratic government are important in their own right. The American democratic tradition is not that we should expect to be happy with our elected officials. It’s that we can have faith that the reach of the state will be limited, that our rights will be protected, and that the practical consequences of an election result go only so far.

Political participation is vital. The past few weeks, though, have been a reminder that democratic government is about much more than who wins. It’s also about respect for rules, magnanimity, patience, and a bevy of other old-fashioned values. Schools need to do a better job of teaching that.



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