Students invoke 25th Amendment since Teacher-In-Chief failed them

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Part of a president’s job is to inspire young Americans to be better citizens. Trump did the opposite.

When our children are young, we hopefully try to foster in them a deep and abiding sense of morality, ethics and character.

We try to teach them to always tell the truth, to be kind and generous, to be brave enough to do the right thing even if others aren’t as brave.

MAKING THE GRADE AS A LEADER – F*

We try to teach them empathy and compassion, that caring about the less fortunate betters society and is also self-edifying.

We teach them to be gracious and thankful and not to brag or bully. Also, don’t lie, cheat or steal.

We teach them to have self-respect and to respect others. We teach them that everyone is equally worthy and valuable, no matter who they are, or what they look like.

We do all this as our children are coming to know how honor and integrity are constructed, maintained and defended. We want to raise good people and good citizens, people who respect society and follow the rules, though not blindly.

PUTTING FORTH THE EFFORT TO HELP OTHERS – 3*

We want them to question the world, and if they identify injustice, work to eliminate it.

We as parents are the first teachers-in-chief, the most important ones, but there are many tangential teachers as well, at family gatherings, at school, at places of worship, on playgrounds, and also in literature, on television and on social media.

The President of the United States is one of those teachers. I don’t think many children follow a president or the politics around that presidency on a routine basis, but the sense of the president sinks in.

They know that the president should be one of the best of us, not the worst. When children do well, adults often say, “You could be president someday.”

Trump exploded all of that. He is everything we teach our children not to be. In Trump’s world of immorality, the lessons being taught undo all the principles parents struggle to instill.

He taught our students that there is no absolute truth; there is “alternative fact.” It’s not what you say, but how you say it and how vociferously you can defend it.

He taught our students that the color of one’s skin does indeed supersede the content of one’s character. He is teaching them that there is a skin-color hierarchy in which whiteness is perched on top.

OVERALL CONDUCT – F*

He taught them that it is perfectly normal to separate some children from their parents and put them in cages.

He taught them to never acknowledge an error, that apologies are for suckers, that what’s right is whatever you say it is.

And, here’s the thing: The children growing up in enormous portions of American households accept, defend and even applaud Trump’s behavior. What lessons are those children absorbing? What behaviors will be modeled on Trump’s example?

What do Trump’s supporters tell their children about his incessant lying; the multiple accusations that he either was sexually inappropriate with women, assaulted them or even raped them?

How do they explain Trump’s racism to these children?
The example I fear today’s children are being taught that there are no rules for he who wins.

Trump is teaching them that you can be the worst version of yourself, rise to the most powerful position in the world and scare people into not holding you accountable.

Trump’s Final Grade* – F3F

Teacher Comments –

There is great hypocrisy in President Trump’s July 4th speech at Mount Rushmore.

“There is no more powerful force than a parent’s love for their children. And patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country.”

This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Consulting. He can be reached at 305-788-4105 or email at ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project. NOTE: Guest contributor Lori Moldovan, Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern, was unavailable for this column due to her extremely heavy caseload related to the pandemic.


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