Sally Hemings was his first (late, and only) wife’s half-sister. She was also 3/4 white, which is why some of her children with Tom could easily pass as white.
There you go…“We’ve had a president who locked up hundreds of thousand innocent people because of their nationality…things will be fine.”
Obama killed American citizens and bombed weddings and funerals.
It’ll be ok.
Whatever this is, it is not an Elections discussion.
Off to IMHO.
Andrew Jackson is a good starter. Suggest that she read about why the Trail of Tears was undertaken. The gold mines and everything.
We survived GWB launching a war that destabilized the Middle East for generations and wrecking the economy. We will survive this. It won’t be pretty and a lot of people will suffer needlessly, but civilization won’t collapse.
Surviving the bad President is not the problem: the problem is surviving with half the voting population wanting Presidents like Trump.
It obviously depends on your daughter’s age. In general it may help to remind her (and ourselves) that sometimes in a democracy, the electorate makes a bad choice. But when they realize how bad it is, there’s eventually a correction. Things political aren’t permanent. As Obama has said, progress doesn’t happen in a straight line, but zig-zags. There are moves forward and there are setbacks. It doesn’t mean we live in a bad world or that evil has won, it just means we have to try a little harder to get back on track.
Trump is actually the first politician where I haven’t simply told my daughter “I disagree with his policies,” and left it at that. And the reason is because his policy proposals (which, don’t get me wrong, are horrible) are not my primary objection. He has made false, bigoted statements about Muslims, Mexicans and other minority groups. He has made sexist statements about women, and more likely than not (given his own recorded statements and the multiple allegations against him) is actually guilty of sexually assaulting a dozen women.
I am raising my children to be tolerant of the fact that others have political views they might not agree with. I am not raising them to tolerate racism and sexism, but to denounce those things. You are absolutely correct that Trump and his supporters have a right to be wrong on policy. His supporters have a right to be wrong about who would make a better President. He doesn’t have a right to grope women, and that doesn’t make him “someone with whom I disagree”; it makes him a bad person.
As an aside, last I heard he wasn’t the choice of the majority of voters. But whether or not he pulls ahead in the popular vote isn’t relevant to my opinion of him as a person.
The intended topic was, basically: “Some past Presidents have done some bad things. Who should we look at to put the guy we just elected in perspective?”
That seems to me as relevant to the election as any of the other “How should we deal with the outcome of this election?” threads. But I’m not arguing for it to be moved back there - whichever forum is fine with me.
You can also teach her a little bit about mathematics in the process. According to the polls, 60% of the people who voted for Trump didn’t really like him nor really want him to be president, they were just more strongly against Hillary. And of course 100% of those voting for Hillary didn’t want Trump. Which means today, 80% of the people already disapprove of the president elect, and he hasnt even done anything presidential yet nor acted as the chief executive and commander in chief. Certainly by far the highest disapproval rating for any president at the time of taking office , and most presidents never reached that level of disapproval during their entire administration.
You could steer away from presidents and just concentrate on trying times for our country. We survived a civil war, a great depression with 25% unemployment, and McCarthyism in which the boogeyman of Communism was used to destroy lives. Trump and Republicans in all houses and on the court will be bad, but I don’t think it will be worse than any of these.
Just teach her that smart people can see things which can happen in the future. Like what will happen with a selfish president who can’t work well with other people. Anyway smart people can see ahead of time there will be problems with that situation.
Stupid people, on the other hand, need to learn by going ahead and doing stupid things. Then they realize “This is not going to work” and will then take steps to remedy the situation. Just takes them a while longer.
Anyway, with that said, everything will get back to normal in 4 years or sooner. Also keep in mind there are a LOT of mentally healthy stable people in the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. These people can take steps to keep Trump in check.
P.S. The Vice President elect seems like a reasonable sort of person to me too. They CAN impeach Trump if he gets too far out of line, then the reasonable VP can take over.
…the guy who believes in conversion “therapy,” signed a law that made it a jailable offense for gay couples to ask for a marriage license, and believes there’s a difference between regular rape and forceable rape? That VP elect?
maybe I’m talking out of turn here, but it seems to me you shouldn’t have filled her head with fear in the first place.
Woodrow Wilson was a vehement racist. He refused to have black leaders to the White House, even though Theodore Roosevelt had done so. His enthusiastic recommendation of Birth of a Nation
helped bring about a national revival of the Ku Klux Klan after it had been nearly extinct.
Why stick with American leaders? Not even the worst President can compare to the most evil Catholic Popes or English Monarchs.