What the 2020 Election Teaches Children About How to Treat Others
By: Stephanie Tolk
Tags: Parenting, Society, Election 2020, Politics, Family

Within a Whisker: What the 2020 Presidential Election Teaches Our Children About How to Treat Others

Regardless of the outcome

On November 3, 2020, my quarantine bubblemates gathered together. Unlike in 2016 when we planned a proper party, this year we opted for something more subdued: comfort foods in the form of richly spiced Moroccan stew, homemade bread, and apple crumble, and cozy seats on sofas nestled under blankets. After the shock of 2016, none of us wished to jinx the outcome by organizing a party; remember Hillary Clinton’s planned bash at the Javitz Center?

The children in our group, four in total, ranged from 8 to 11 years old, and they oscillated between joining us in front of the television and playing in other parts of the house. As the adults watched results roll in, we all became increasingly anxious. I went to sleep at 11 pm Pacific Standard Time to Donald Trump leading in almost all battleground states wondering how I’d explain a Trump victory to my children.

In 2016, my daughters were 5 and 7-years-old, and how I longed to tell them that a woman had become president. What a message that would have conveyed. This year, at ages 9 and 11, the girls are paying greater attention; the messages cut deeper and embed into growing hearts and minds more enduringly.

At the time of this writing, the 2020 presidential election is too close to call. The landslide, or blue wave, failed to manifest, and almost 70,000,000 Americans have chosen Donald Trump as president. While the question of who will be our next president remains unanswered, the messages children receive are quite clear.

Appalling behavior is acceptable.

Millions of children witnessed the first presidential debate, that disastrous display of bluster, bullying, and harassment. I struggled with how to deconstruct that evening for my children and to explain Trump’s bellicosity. Throughout his presidency, Trump has mocked and insulted Puerto Ricans, people with disabilities, dozens of fellow Republicans, Mexicans, and even Anderson Cooper, Spike Lee, and Amazon.

If Americans found Trump’s vitriol truly despicable, he would not be earning nearly 50% of the vote nationwide. The closeness of this race pardons and, indeed, condones deplorable behavior. No amount of anti-bullying curriculum delivered in schools can convince our children otherwise.

Failure is unacceptable.

Successful individuals from famous novelists to Steve Jobs to a Harvard University professors extol the virtues of failing, knowing that it invites experimentation, encourages innovation, and brings vital lessons that can’t be learned another way. Donald Trump, who talks quite a bit about winning and losing, is afraid to fail.

On election day, Trump said,

Winning is easy, losing is never easy. Not for me. It’s not.

This we’ve known for many years. Rather than accepting defeat or being proven wrong, Trump retaliates by changing the topic, creating a diversion, outright and blatantly lying, or defiling the credibility of the person or institution he deems his opponent. Humility is not in his DNA.

Meanwhile, our children struggle to read chapter books, cross out improper cursive penmanship in frustration, or fail to solve a math problem. As parents and caregivers, we might illuminate the lessons in failure, the acceptance and grace we should find for ourselves, the patience we can muster as we persevere. All the while they see the President of the United States marshaling his forces to contest a fairly run election out of an overriding fear of failure.

Self-centeredness is admirable.

Earlier in the summer, when the Supreme Court ruled on DACA, a heated element of the issue of immigration, Trump tweeted, “Do you get the impression the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?” Some on Twitter had a field day, and others looked up the definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Donald Trump’s obsession with propelling his own interests forward extends to his family and loyal friends who have earned rewards throughout Trump’s presidency. Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr both have children working at the White House, and Trump has appointed scads of cronies to coveted positions in government. A generous campaign donor became the head of the US Postal Service weeks before an election involving tens of millions of mailed ballots.

Of course, it all started with the installation of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump as political advisors, which had many of us scratching our heads. But we don’t need to look up the word nepotism, now do we?

As we instill into our children values around giving, sharing, selflessness, and community, these examples of self-interest, selfishness, and an obsession with personal gain swirl around them.

Collaboration is for the weak.

One of Trump’s most monumental failures involves his complicity in the deaths of over 235,000 Americans. Any self-assured leader would have been comfortable acknowledging that political skill and acumen do not exist in tandem with expertise in virology and epidemiology. Americans and people around the world remain shocked that Trump failed to listen to teams of experts, but this is because he believes he is the only expert who matters.

During a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in March 2020, Trump said,

I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.

Meanwhile, our children work in pairs and groups in school, practicing collaboration, and snapping their thoughts together with the ideas of others. They learn when to push their ideas through and when to acquiesce to better ideas. They learn that more minds make better decisions. How do they square these lessons with Trump’s disastrous go-it-alone approach?

Threats are useful tools.

This year alone, Donald Trump has threatened to cut school funding if schools didn’t open due to the pandemic. He’s threatened Black Lives Matter protesters. He’s bullied the media. He’s failed to denounce white supremacy by inviting the Proud Boys to ready themselves, as if they were in service as his private gang of thugs. (A catalog of many of his threats by ABC News can be found here.)

Trump’s threats don’t only come in the form of violence; he’s been warning for months that he’d contest this election by calling it rigged, questioning the validity of ballots, and undermining the political process.

Our children recognize these threats as failed efforts at conflict resolution. Children frequently practice solving conflicts as they work on listening, respectful communication, and using their words rather than their hands.

So what do we do about it?

Regardless of who wins the election, this damage has been done to the country’s children. And regardless of who we voted for, those of us who care for children must work to counteract the harm by displaying altruism, compassion, and care for the community. We must be good listeners, respectful, and collaborative. We have a duty to model excellent behavior and to call out injustice, selfishness, and callousness where we see it, in front of our children.

Our actions matter much more than our words.