“Why Are Third-Graders Afraid of Donald Trump?” is the title of a “news” article posted Monday on the liberal Atlantic magazine's website in an obvious attempt to promote the notion that even children fear Donald Trump.
However, Stephen Kruiser -- a professional comedian and conservative activist -- responded by noting that articles such as this one are having the opposite of the desired effect: They're “actually generating sympathy for the Republican presidential candidate.”
Emily Rich, who is the public editor for the National Education Writers Association, began her post by stating: “As students process the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s fear-inducing rhetoric, educators are left to wrestle with bringing these lessons into the classroom.”
“Although he’s almost a decade shy of the voting age, Micah St. George has a message he’s anxious to deliver to the Republican National Committee: Please don’t nominate Donald Trump for president.”
The author continued by stating: “A soon-to-be fourth grader in Newton, Massachusetts, Micah is the co-founder of Kids Against Trump, a group that started with a paper petition passed around the playground at Angier Elementary, a K-6 school in a bucolic suburb just west of Boston.”
“The idea for the petition started in February after some of Trump’s speeches,” Rich asserted. “The candidate’s words troubled Micah on two levels.”
“First of all, there were Trump’s disparaging comments about women, Muslims, and immigrants,” she continued. “Micah was adopted from Guatemala as an infant, and he has two moms. So it felt to Micah like Trump was attacking his family and friends.”
“But another thought stuck with Micah: 'I can understand everything he’s saying,'” Rich asserted.
“'He’s talking on my level -- I’m 9 years old, '” Micah says. “'That’s not okay.'”
“Micah’s friend and classmate Alexis Fridman -- who started the original recess petition with him and is the other co-founder of Kids Against Trump -- put it another way: 'If I talked like Donald Trump, I’d get sent to the principal's office immediately.'”
“It would be easy to dismiss Micah and Alexis as precocious kids with grassroots dreams,” Rich noted. “Their group isn’t very big. It’s just them and a few friends and neighbors, plus they have support from about 200 people who have so far signed their Change.org petition.”
“While there are examples of college-age young people organizing against both Trump … and Clinton (Her rallies have drawn student protesters.), Kids Against Trump’s founders appear to be at the fore of the elementary-age set,” she added.
“But national civics experts, educators and researchers say the actions of Micah and Alexis are indicative of a wider trend -- and some significant issues -- for public schools,” she asserted.
“A recent survey of teachers found many are struggling to reassure students, particularly those from immigrant and Muslim families, who are frightened about what a Trump victory in November might mean for them,” Rich asserted.
She noted: “A new ad from Hillary Clinton’s campaign centers on kids as a particularly vulnerable audience for the presumptive Republican nominee’s rhetoric.”
“At the same time,” Rich indicated, “educators report they are afraid to violate school-district policies that prohibit political advocacy in the classroom. They also worry about alienating families that might hold divergent viewpoints.”
She also noted:
Researchers say a key indicator of kids’ civic engagement is whether their own parents take part in related activities. And Micah’s home life certainly influences his political awareness: His mother, Shivonne St. George, teaches social studies at a middle school in a neighboring town.
She and her partner, Erika Schluntz, talk regularly with their son about current events. But the idea for the petition originated with Micah and Alexis, their parents say.
“Like Micah, Alexis says she has an avid interest in politics, and her concerns about Trump have a personal dimension,” Rich stated.
“Her father is a computer engineer who immigrated from Mexico at age 17 to attend Boston University and later became a U.S. citizen,” she reported. “Because of that family heritage, Trump’s comments 'don’t feel so far away' to Alexis, her mother says: 'When someone starts talking about building a wall to keep out Mexicans, and your grandmother -- who you call abuela -- is in Mexico, it resonates.'”
Nevertheless, Kruiser has a different take on the matter.
“Bless their hearts, but the Democrat Media Complex has been doing things a certain way for so long they're purely reflexive now and don't realize that the old rules have been flipped,” he stated on the PJ Media website.
“It's customary at this point in a presidential election cycle to ramp up the demonizing of the GOP nominee,” Kruiser concluded. “This isn't something unique to Trump or 2016."
Taking a phrase from recent Geico insurance commercials, Kruiser concluded: "It's just what they do.”
