We are having a number of discussion about how to teach in the era of Trump. How do we avoid stifling debate and intimidating Trump supporter's voices with our well known liberal obsession with facts and context and stuff? Honestly, we do need to create a "liberal" space - in the sense of free and open - where all voices are heard and valued. But at the same time - having a perspective on history and government - Trump represents a truly existential threat to American democratic institutions should he be elected, in ways that Mitt Romney or John McCain simply didn't. I can teach both sides of the question about how big should government be. I can't teach both sides of whether we should torture people or kill their families or Mexicans are rapists and can't be judges. I can't teach both sides of Trump's most Trumpiest moments.
As the race tightens (which I think it does every Labor Day, as poll respondents shift), we are now faced with another holy shit moment from Trump.
Despite the two decades long obsession with Travelgate, Whitewater, Vince Foster, Lewinsky, Benghazi, Servergate and now the fact that the Clinton Foundation exists and does things, we really haven't found a single verifiable criminal act by Hillary Clinton. Investigated more than a mafia don, and she hasn't been found guilty of anything worse than poor judgment in the email server case.
On the other hand, we have Trump. More particularly, we have Trump funneling campaign contributions through his charity - which is illegal - in order to finance the campaigns of attorneys general in Texas and Florida (natch) who were considering investigating his massively fraudulent Trump University. And Trump has bragged about buying off politicians.
Are you aware of this? Not if you read the NY Times or watch CNN. This is the sort of scandal that would send much of the press into a schadenfreude orgasmic reverie if Hillary Clinton was at the heart of it. They tried to gin up a controversy over the Clinton Foundation asking - and being denied - diplomatic passports when Bill went to free US journalists in North Korea.
Here is a case of actual pay-to-play, where Trump ILLEGALLY gave large sums to the very people who were in charge of deciding whether or not to investigate his bullshit "university."
It is pretty clear that Trump has exploited the media's penchant for "both sides" objectivity. There is simply so much dirt on this guy, that they feel they have to inflate these acts of being a politician that Clinton does into crimes.
How the hell am I supposed to talk about Trump in class tomorrow without being more objective than the NY Times?
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