Educating for Democracy

While in theory, I find the notion of educating for democracy a noble cliche, I also find it rather misleading and part of a broader misrepresentation of national political identity/history and an extension of mythic American exceptionalism being taught by American educators, often by critics of American exceptionalism, who unwittingly continue to pass along a 1960's mythology of America as the leader and purveyor of freedom, decolonization, global reform and DEMOCRATIC VALUES at a very time in history in which the US was pursuing global trade policies that didn't reflect a democratic regard for global competition and undermined economic diversification in Asia (excluding Japan) and South America. There are several things to acknowledge about the USA in regards to our constant misrepresentation of our representative republic as a democracy. 1) Several of the founding fathers (Madison, Monroe, Jefferson and Adams in particular) considered the direct democracy of Classical Athens a dangerous abdication to "mob rule" and preferred the more "aristocratic" precedent of the Roman republic of the 4th-1st century BCE (Middlekauf, 2005) in which aristocratic safeguards were in place after the Gracchi reforms that protected the broader population from the dangerous demagoguery and populism of Julius Caesar and Octavian and placed much of national policy decision in the hands of the men with established noble family credentials and the wealth to expand plantation society across the Mediterranean and finance colonial military expansion, 2) It was Andrew Jackson who pushed the idea of men of property monopolizing the vote as antiquated and pushed for universal voting rights for all white males, but not because he conceived of all Americans as equal citizens so much as he was seeking allies among his base of the rural white poor of the back-country and the South to support his attack on establishment New England and Pennsylvania banking and a merchant class that had been fiercely critical of his appeal to "mob rule" and "folksy anti-intellectualism" (Meacham, 2008) 3) A democracy requires direct participation by all citizens in the decision making process, with full disclosure to the demos and equal access to positions of power, generally assigned through drawing straws at random or via a selection process that doesn't involve money or special interests. Voting via political party and through a flawed elecition process in which massive sweeps of the population are still intimidated from voting or their votes are circumvented via creative use of gerrymandering/districting to silence/limit their voice, is not in any way representative of the only democracy that ever existed, that of Ancient Athens. While both power structures originally rested on the institution of slavery and the pursuit of colonial opportunism via Westward and globalist expansion and empire building, the United States has relied heavily on a representative system in which party platforms and partisan voting takes precedent over voting on individual bills based on the will of "the people". Especially in today's toxic partisan climate in which the GOP pursues stronger power for corporate entities over the public. That being said, while the three notions of a "good citizen" as personally responsible, participatory and justice oriented certainly represent an early 20th century Theodore Roosevelt inspired reading of "American citizenship", they seem outdated and disconnected with the political realities of 21st century American politics. Especially in the era of Trumpian demagoguery, but also in an era since the 1980's in which money and special interests dominate the American political system and fabricated information purveyors and distributors like Fox News (43% of the news found on Fox is fabricated or deliberately misleading, ca. 75% exaggerated or not fully accurate) on the right and Think Progress on the left are celebrated as voices of reason and balance by purely partisan bases who no longer need to look beyond their own partisan perceptions where even the most basic facts and science are in dispute and civil respect for educated insights that don't agree with either party platforms are ridiculed and attacked, often with exclusively ad hominem attacks (Trump, Cruz, Huckabee) or playing up to class warfare and wealth envy (Bernie Sanders). An educated citizenry is certainly still the ideal, but are we deluding ourselves as future and present teachers presuming we have more influence than parents in the home regarding political perspectives and modeling for civic ideals? Political science research done by our own John Gruhl at UN-L suggests parents and their political views and perceptions of reality play the most important and influential role on adolescents well into their adulthood, especially in rural communities. Given how GOP dominated the state of Nebraska is, where candidates like Ben Sasse simply refused to show up to scheduled debates because the poll numbers showed an easy victory and "democratic norms" are being undermined by the very people the public rewards by voting them into office, there seems very little room for intelligent debate in the public sphere when it comes to civic responsibilities given the general public's unwillingness in recent years to exercise/exert their control over sweeping expansion of graft and corruption since the Reagan administration in public affairs. Citizens are simply too distracted by sports, entertainment, constant consumption and financial security to invest the time required to be a responsible and informed voter and both parties have reacted by running candidates more loyal to party bosses than local communities. While teachers and educators can certainly present a counter narrative through intelligent discussion and modeling of nobler civic ideals not as likely upheld in the home, ultimately our influences pales in comparison to parental modeling and in order to come closer to these ideal notions of democracy, it requires making in roads with parents and promoting a more critical-thinking based community wide activism among school district denziens.