I was driving to work this morning, listening to NPR on the radio-- jockeying for position, as usual, amid the early-morning semi trucks, speed demons and steering wheel multi-taskers (because everyone knows the safest way to drive is when you simultaneously talk on your phone, apply makeup/shave and drink a venti Starbucks latte).
A news segment began wherein teachers and students were being interviewed about the challenges of using this year's televised presidential debates for lessons.
It was heartbreaking and infuriating enough to listen to these poor teachers describe how they were trying to build real-life lessons and learning for their students, using the current presidential debates as a kickoff point. These teachers were trying to stay fair, using clips from both the democratic as well as republican side.
Visions slipped into my head of being one of these teachers, standing in front of 25 or 30 middle school students, the republican debates on the computer or tv screen, and suddenly finding myself scrabbling for the remote control to mute the innuendo and nastiness.
Most of the teachers said that they had to eventually resort to using only select clips of the republican debates, and then re-building their lessons to focus on how NOT to engage in presidential debate.
Anyone who knows me will understand that if I were in any of these teacher's shoes right now, I'd be doing the same thing--trying to give equal weight, equal consideration to both sides--republican and democrat. I'd wield my words carefully to avoid bias.
I don't need to tear down others just to support my own beliefs.
People do not need to tear down other people just to support their own beliefs.
This would seem to me to be a general rule of being a human being with a large brain and opposable thumbs.
The republican candidates evidently did not get this memo.
I'm not saying that all democrats are better and more ethical than all republicans--both of the democratic candidates have done their share of talking over each other and hollering as well. I'm not even saying that all the republican candidates are equally to blame for the disgraceful parody of presidential debate that they are currently performing. But the republican debates seem to have run right off the path as one of the republican candidates slipped into the proverbial gutter, and the other two followed along behind him. They might have followed slowly, but they still followed.
And so I will say this...
if a person aspiring to be the president of any country does not possess the self control, maturity and respect for the position to control himself/herself in a televised debate, they do not have the self control, maturity and respect for the position to succeed.
We expect a presidential debate to be respectfully adversarial to a certain point. We even expect the exchange of fairly intelligent, articulate jabs and maybe even some pithy teasing.
As the republican debates stand so far, they are not respectful, not intelligent and some times not even particularly articulate as they holler over each other. I won't even get into the whole "tiny hands" debacle.
In the NPR piece I heard this morning the students interviewed (roughly middle school age) all had similar reactions to these debates: the candidates were acting like children. One student had seen parts of the Donald Trump rallies (which, I acknowledge, are not equivalent to the presidential debates, but are indicative of the political climate at this time). He was clearly troubled, his voice serious and amazed as he described watching Mr. Trump say something insulting, only to have the audience cheer him on and echo it.
THIS is the example that our young people are seeing. THIS is what is being broadcast nation wide--adults cheering on hatred, violence, intolerance. And the image of this is what will stay with our young people. Teachers and parents can backtrack and discuss and teach our young people how to think critically about what they are seeing. We can try dipping into history and explore the Lincoln-Douglas debates, view presidential debates of the past in order to assure our young people that not all candidates-- not all people--are like this.
But the IMAGE of this--the visual, visceral realization of how truly ugly adults can behave---this will stay with them, for better or worse. They may feel disgust or admiration but they--like many of us who are older--will never again be able to see a presidential race in quite the same way.
From NPR: "Explaining 'Small Hands,' Wet Pants to Your Kids This Presidential Campaign"
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/10/469897741/parents-teachers-shocked-by-language-content-in-gop-presidential-debate
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