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I think for me a big issue is the polarization of the United States. It’s probably not completely unprecedented, but it’s crazy to my self raised in the 1980s and 1990s that we live in a world where half of the country views the other half as subversive if not dangerous. I don’t think if you’d go back to 1985 and said that in 2025, people would consider the president elect a danger to democracy— especially given that such a sentiment is not a fringe thing, a major political party, hell the current president, have said so. I don’t think, other than the American Civil War, you had something quite so polarized.
The 60's and 70's were absolutely that polarized, as were the '50s for some conservative groups. Things were always both wilder and more normal than you think in the past.
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The problem is that the woke-vs-Trump split is absolutely impossible to discuss dispassionatly in a classroom. My own position ('a pox on both your houses!') (which is obviously very dispassionate, neutral and objectively correct) would likely earn me fire from both of the big factions.
It has been said that Politics is the Mind-Killer.
The thing about elephants in the room is that sometimes, acknowledging them will cause them to rip your head off (metaphorical elephants, at least, I think actual elephants are mostly peaceful), so it is much safer to tiptoe around them and confine your lecture to elephants which are safely in another continent.
Of course, you want your students to engage in political discussions about stuff which actually affects them, not the politics of of the French revolution, but you also want them to have civilized disagreements and arguments, not to start killing each other.
Pick a topic which students have feelings about, but which is not partisan-politics-coded. i.e. daylight saving times -- it is safe, if slightly boring. Every student has to deal with them (or their absence), but few will pick that as their hill to die on. Local issues.
No they are not. Elephants are very dangerous animals.
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