Our Health and Human Services secretary, who inveighs against “corrupt” medical journals and urges people to “do your own research,” recently issued his grand “Make America Healthy Again” report—dotted with fake sources and false claims. Of course, after years spent mouthing untruths about Biden’s health and Covid’s origins, the Democrats and the legacy media are hardly credible critics.
Harvard and its elite brethren are under fire from a Trump administration that is making extortionate demands and operating by norms of vendetta rather than due process. Of course, Democrats would be better positioned to denounce Trump’s actions if they hadn’t cheered as the Obama and Biden teams pioneered ways to exert federal influence over higher ed through Title VI, Title IX, and student lending.
I could go on and on. There’s the shameless hypocrisy with which the left and right takes turns decrying and celebrating executive action, weaponized law enforcement, “pen and phone” immigration policy, and so much else. Both tribes are running roughshod over basic norms, guardrails, and rules of the road. The depredations of each camp fuel (and help justify) those of the other.
Now, it’d be unfair to blame schools for this political misconduct and civic malpractice. I’d lay most of the blame on social media, the erosion of civil society, the decline of political parties, and the rise of political celebrity. We’ve lapsed into a civic ethos of rights over rules, of passion over process, and of issues over institutions.
But. Schools are a crucial place for addressing this lapse in civic virtues and promoting healthier habits. And even the attempt can offer an excuse to talk (if only for a moment) about ground rules and responsibilities.
What do I have in mind? Honestly, the particulars may matter less than the principle. We need to be brutally clear that civic education is not about passions or participation. At a time when voting is at historic highs, politics has become entertainment, and ideologically-motivated murder has become a GoFundMe cause, “action civics” is the last thing we need. As I put it five years ago, after January 6, 2021:
Telling students to support their favorite candidates or causes is . . . the easy part of civic education. What’s harder and more important is teaching the habits of mind—not just the knowledge—that sustain the American system. This requires a fealty to laws, a respect for institutions, an appreciation for checks and balances, and the confidence that defeats are not cataclysmic.
What should that look like? I’m open to ideas. As someone who was teaching high school civics back in the last century, this is a topic I’ve been noodling on for a very long time without devising any uber-sophisticated answers. That said, I think some calls to reform civics education have become overcomplicated or tried to do too much.
