Is Trump Smarter than a 5th Grader?
“If you don’t know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you gotta go back to a fifth-grade civics class.” — Tim Kaine
It’s time to test Trump’s well-known habit of promising the American public a grand resurrection of his very own brand of American values. And who better to test this against than a classroom of 5th graders?
Kids around America learn about the glorious checks and balances system in 5th grade, a system that ensures no one branch of government gains too much power. So, why does Trump continue to say things as if he running to become the supreme monarch of the United States? Does he understand the original intentions of our Founding Fathers in designing the U.S. government? Or, simply, is he smarter than a 5th grader?
As a senior in college looking to go into law and public policy, I’m hoping beyond hope that the system our forefathers painstakingly deliberated over and mandated 300 years ago can withstand Trump’s continuous efforts to challenge the moral foundations of our country. Collectively and over the course of 240 years, we have built an identity based upon the values of equality, freedom, and fairness espoused in our Constitution.
This is not to say our country hasn’t failed these values in the past, but I’d like to believe that we learn about our past to inform a better future.
After doing a deep dive into the laundry list of controversial statements that Donald Trump has made since declaring his candidacy for president, I picked a few that spanned multiple topics at the forefront of the election and crafted 5th grade-friendly questions relating to them.
The Basics
First, I asked the kids if they knew how the government worked. Mostly, I got blank stares; to be fair, they’re new fifth graders and they haven’t formally learned much about the U.S. government, so I had to cut ’em a break.
How does our government work?
Green shirt kid in the front: “There’s three branches…I’m pretty sure one of the branches is the judicial branch? Okay well I do know that there’s elections, it’s not a dictatorship.”
I still hadn’t quite broken the ice with the class yet, so I pressed on with more inviting questions that they could relate to their own lives — and this is where I found their answers to be in striking contrast to The Donald’s statements.
5th Graders v. Donald J. Trump
What are the duties of the government?
From a collection of voices in the classroom: “Passing new laws…making sure the roads are safe…trying to stop people from being killed…stopping terrorists…make friends with other countries…laws for guns…making more jobs…helping the homeless.”
— versus —
DJT: “I mean, there are many, many things, but I would say the top three are security, security, security…We are in danger. Thousands and thousands of people are infiltrating our country. We don’t know who they are. There’s a very vicious world.” (March 29, 2016, CNN GOP Town Hall)
This was only the second question I asked, and some of the answers I heard from students were better than ones I could have come up with myself. Surprisingly, it seems like 5th graders do have a pretty good handle on what the government is supposed to be doing. Maybe it’s the election cycle, maybe they’re just observant, or maybe they’ve been eavesdropping on their parent’s conversations, but nonetheless I was impressed. In a March Town Hall event, Trump choked on this question, and could only spit out security three times before offering up a few other policy areas that were actually contradictory to his platform. Go figure.
What can and can’t the president do?
Boy with hat in the middle: “He can’t disobey his own laws. And he can’t just make up rules —like he can’t say all the kids in the world can’t have recess…”
Pink dress girl in front: “Yeah! And he can’t say from my first day in office, this is going to happen — like crime is going to go down — because that’s not true…He has to space it out.”
— versus —
DJT: “On day 1, I’m going to begin swiftly removing criminal illegal immigrants from this country…We’re going to get rid of the criminals and it’s going to happen within one hour after I take office, we start, okay?” (August 27, 2016, Des Moines campaign stop)
This certainly speaks to some level about the honesty that we expect from our politicians and government. No, the president can’t break his own laws (as much as Trump may like to) and saying anything will happen on day one of a presidency is unrealistic. We all know politicians say things like this to emphasize the urgency of an issue, but perhaps statements like these are only further degrading the American public’s trust in government. Trump is capitalizing on the desperation of a few select groups who believe in this rhetoric, despite its logical impossibility. When politicians speak in fantastical terms, it undercuts our entire election as a whole — how can we believe anything politicians say when they so easily throw around blatant lies? The 5th graders recognized this disconnect with the theoretical intentions of political promises and the reality of them in American politics. If 5th graders see the problem in this, why don’t we?
What do you think about possibly having a female president?
Shaggy-haired boy in the front: “I think it will change the lives of lots of people because when women have better rights, their children will be better off, and that will raise a lot of standards [of living].”
Shy girl in the back: “I think it’s completely awesome.”
Green shirt girl: “I think girls who might not have wanted to be president might want to now because they see that a woman is doing it.”
— verus —
DJT: “[Hillary] doesn’t have the presidential look. She doesn’t have the stamina…To be the president of this county you need tremendous stamina.” (September 27, 2016, First Presidential Debate)
The answers to this question really blew me away. Time and time again, Donald Trump has shown a rudimentary lack of respect for women. He’s disrespected women all his life, and he’ll continue to do so. So, what do 5th graders think about a woman president? They love it. And what’s more, they don’t see the big deal. They haven’t been exposed to the glass ceilings and the subtle discriminations of the real world. More boys raised their hand to answer this question than girls, and they all said, “Girls can do anything boys do.” Here’s to hoping 11 year old boys across the nation are saying the same thing.
The Results
So, did I prove my point? Is Trump smarter than a 5th grader? Well, not in the way I thought I would.
The 5th graders didn’t know enough about civics for it to have been a fair fight over the structure and abilities of the government, but I would argue that even without this knowledge, they intuitively know more about the foundation of the U.S. than Donald Trump does.
Their responses are cohesive with the “self-evident” truths set forth in the Declaration of Independence:
…That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
And Donald Trump’s statements are not.
Perhaps the 5th graders don’t know more about American politics than our presidential candidate does, but it seems like he could learn a lot about our country’s moral foundation from them.
