Quote:
Originally posted by Sunshine.
Can you imagine the grade school history books trying to normalize or navigate how to explain his behavior? What would you have thought if you read about his campaign in middle school? Just messy.  |
Most public school history text books are written by straight white men who will probably have no problem normalizing him.
I've been saying all year that coverage of this election will be ridiculous in history text books, and I was always operating under the presumption that she would
win.
Just imagine it. A paragraph about Hillary—the lifelong public servant, most qualified presidential candidate in history, debate champion with actual policies to improve the country and the lives of all its citizens, winner of the popular vote by literally millions—followed by a paragraph about Donald—a mentally unstable con man reality television star endorsed by the KKK who spent his entire campaign insulting, degrading, and threatening nearly every group of people in the country / world. Then the sentence "He became President."
It's about as close as a textbook author could come to saying "People are stupid" without actually writing "People are stupid."
The upside (or downside, depending how you look at it) is that most teachers dedicate so much time to the colonial era thru the 20th century that they never even reach the 80s, let alone the 2010s. It will be the college campuses (history, sociology, political science, women's studies) where this election becomes a centerpiece of the curriculum.
Quote:
Originally posted by Wonderland
I think it has a part to play but 2016 is also a weird time...
Like if ANYONE else said what Trump had said this cycle they would have been crucified. Like Obama could have NEVER said that nor any previous president.
So it's like we've entered this era where a large number of people are becoming apathetic towards... Intellectualism? The political process? Democracy? It's hard to pinpoint exactly what, but I feel like the fact he's such a walking mess and contradiction actually helped him win.
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It's anti-intellectualism combined with anti-political establishment, with more than a dash of anti-human decency thrown in for good measure.
