Hey Fellow Teachers: Trump Not Your President? He Is. Get Over It — Warts and All
By Kevin Thomas | April 22, 2017, 11:16 EDT
He says “It’s time to fire the anti-Trump ‘teachers’.”
Really?
Kyle Reyes accomplished his goal with the headline that he “personally wrote” for his blog article, because a headline, first and foremost, is supposed to grab your attention.
Reyes is good at getting your attention, which is why his commentaries for New Boston Post are so popular. I often agree with Reyes, although his reasoning is usually more colorful than mine.
But what does he mean by anti-Trump teachers? I’m a teacher, and I am no fan of the ways of Donald Trump. And I have told my students why.
My job is still safe, I think, because I don’t reach the level of “disservice to our children and to our country” that Reyes writes about.
Reyes’s pink slips are directed toward those “proudly anti-Trump” educators who:
“Take to Facebook announcing that they aren’t going to teach their students about President Trump.”
“Say they don’t recognize Trump as our President. That instead they are going to focus on civics and why it’s important to protest.”
Reyes has a point there. Donald Trump is the president of the United States, which makes him our president. Saying anything different is not only foolish, but declaring yourself the dictator of thought-control.
Never mind the facts, dear students, you will only learn the truths that I feel good about.
When Trump was elected, I heard colleagues tell their students that they were going to move to Canada. I sighed. We are a republic. We disagree. We argue. But when we ignore reality, or threaten to run away because we didn’t get our way, what are we teaching?
If Hillary Clinton won, I would have not liked it. I would disagree with many of her policies. But, yes, she would have been my president.
But Clinton lost, pushing social agendas that did not resonate as much as other issues. The recently-released book about Clinton’s defeat, Shattered, maintains, “Hillary didn’t have a vision to articulate. And no one else could give her one.”
So we are left with the foot-stomping argument that Trump did not win the popular vote. Clinton garnered almost 2.9 million more votes. But take out California – where Clinton won by 4.2-million votes – and Trump is easily ahead.
One reason for the Electoral College is so one state does not determine the presidency. I learned that in my civics class.
So Trump is my president and, for you U.S. citizens, he is your president, too, whatever you think about him.
Personally, I don’t think much of the man.
Long before his publicized vulgar comments, made 12 years ago, about groping women, I already told my students that his actions were immoral and piggish. That was also before his comments about Republican challenger Carly Fiorina (“Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?”)
Last spring, I read my class excerpts from Trump’s book The Art of the Deal, where he brags about adultery:
“If I told real stories of my experiences with women, often seemingly very happily married and important women, this book would be a guaranteed best-seller.”
What a gentleman. When his decade-old comments about groping women surfaced in October, it only solidified my low opinion. It also sparked a lot of protests and marches.
Interestingly, I don’t remember hearing those protesting voices when a male, married president took advantage of his position and seduced a young, female intern in the Oval Office, and then lied about it. (Remember the infamous “It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” that Bill Clinton used with a grand jury?)
Trump does not save all his ignorance for sexist comments. How about the one concerning Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”
Reprehensible.
When Trump talked about his personal Christian beliefs in 2015, he said, “I’m not sure I have ever asked God’s forgiveness. I don’t bring God into that picture.”
Sure, what does God or forgiveness have to do with Christianity? I had to talk to my students about that one.
As president, Trump has a lot to do. But his Twitter account suggests otherwise, especially when he tweets about vital matters like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s role on a reality TV show:
“Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t voluntarily leaving the Apprentice, he was fired by his bad (pathetic) ratings, not by me. Sad end to a great show.”
Truly sad in so many ways.
I hold out hope for a Trump presidency – Secretary of Defense James Mattis and new Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch are a few of the reasons why – and I preferred him to the alternative.
I’m a teacher. I am neither pro-Trump, nor anti-Trump. But I do talk about him to my students because he is our president.
Kevin Thomas is a writer and teacher, living with his wife and children in Standish, Maine.