When a new presidential rule stated that tuning the TV to Fox News would be standard operating procedure aboard Air Force One, I couldn’t help but wonder what type of education Donald Trump received. Was he ever tasked with writing a research paper gathering sources from different perspectives and different points of view?

 Living in a world of selective information limits an individual’s understanding of the world. It is astounding when the president of the United States lives in such a world. With such an attitude, it is Trump who is the real enemy of the people as well as the enemy of a liberal education. Any dissent or challenge to the Trump position is either silenced or rejected as fake news. 

When the president says “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” he restricts a healthy debate among competing ideas. Such a debate strengthens a democracy. The Trump administration is telling people in Orwellian language to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. 

Having a single source of information is the ideology of authoritarian regimes, not thriving democracies. A healthy argument is the foundation of a democracy despite the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict such discussions. It is the responsibility of classroom teachers to promote these dialogues. Education and educators cannot be politically neutral in this atmosphere.

Larry Hoffner, retired