The Election is Over: Now What?

[smccormack]

The 2024 Presidential Election will undoubtedly be debated and analyzed by political scientists and historians for the foreseeable future. In the days immediately following November 5th when students asked me for my thoughts on the election results I resorted to humor: it hadn’t been long enough for me to comment on the election results. As a historian I will need at least twenty to thirty years to mull it over, examine the sources, and draw conclusions. And while I do believe that it will be decades until historians have a better understanding of how the election played out, the truth is that I did not want to engage in conversation with my students about the election results so close to the end of a volatile campaign.

Remaining neutral and unbiased when discussing difficult topics is a constant challenge in history education. I’ve addressed this topic in previous blogs and have encouraged faculty to keep the focus on civil discourse, which many public observers argue has significantly decreased in 21st-century presidential campaigns. As historians the presentation of information through evidence in the form of primary and secondary sources are critical to our field’s credibility and our ability to connect today’s students to the challenging lessons of our national past. But what if things are happening so fast that we don’t have time to be reflective? In other words, what do we do when we, the educator, feel overwhelmed by current events? 

Election-related issues have inevitably leaked into our class discussions, especially as nominations for cabinet positions headline many news outlets. I’ve found that the best way to incorporate discussion of current events is to suggest that students do their own deep dives into issues of interest using the skills they are developing in class. Speculation about mass deportations of foreign-born workers, for example, leads to questions about historical immigration policies, detainment, and the use of the US military in World War II-era internment of Japanese-Americans. Discussions of rights for LGBTQ+ people opens avenues for discussion of the historical origins of civil rights. My advice to students is to engage in the research themselves so that they can develop their own educated opinions: in other words, rather than doom-scrolling, use the same library resources we are utilizing for our in-class research projects to examine the issues of personal concern.

As educators we have to constantly remind ourselves that our students come from a myriad of socio-economic backgrounds. We will never be in a classroom in which every student shares our political beliefs and it’s not our role to convince them that our perspective is the “right” one. The best we can do is to offer them the limitless tools of education: critical thinking, research, and reading skills so that they can continuously question the information that they are bombarded by each day and look for sources that provide them with the kind of evidence we use in history classes. Remind them that they have the ability to be knowledgeable voters rather than passive bystanders. 

How are you talking with students about the 2024 Presidential Election? Please share!