November 2020: How Well Do You Know How The American System of Government Works?
Define:
Electoral college
Bicameral legislature
Judicial Review
Veto
Checks and Balances
Speaker of the House
Respond:
How many members of the House of Representatives are there? What is this number based on?
How many Senators are there? What is this number based on?
Who executes the laws?
Who makes the laws?
Who interprets the laws?
What are the qualifications to be President of the US?
Can a Presidential nominee win the popular vote and lose the election?
What were the Articles of Confederation?
What was the purpose of the Declaration of Independence?
When was the US Constitution written? When was it ratified?
What are the first 10 amendments called?
How many amendments to the Constitution have there been?
How many Supreme Court Justices are there and how long do they serve?
What are the states’ rights as defined by the US Constitution?
Who is the president of the Senate?
Between the coronavirus and the November election a few months away, we all read politically charged social media comments from posters daily, many of whom are, unfortunately, uneducated about the American political system. As a former history student and teacher, I am finding it more and more difficult not to have mini temper tantrums as I read and respond to these posts, and I know I can’t be alone. I picture thousands of history and government teachers heads in hands, mumbling, moaning, tossing back glasses of wine as they curse in frustration at the lack of what should be common knowledge among Americans about their own rights and responsibilities.
In the beginning, I ignored the posts. Then, I tried to respond nicely and somewhat charitably to the really ridiculous ones where it was obvious that the authors had no clue, but, eventually, my patience dried up and, instead, I started copying links to the US Constitution, or to “American History for Dummies” when the definitions of bicameral legislature, executive branch, states rights, judicial review, checks and balances, the electoral college and impeachment were needed. I fantasized about sending everyone some excerpts from Locke, Montesquieu and De Tocqueville, and even some information on “The Magna Carta,” and “The Articles of Confederation,” and their influences on the Constitution, but even I thought that might be going too far. My final straw came when terms like totalitarianism, fascism, authoritarianism and socialism started to be thrown around incorrectly and casually and I began to realize there was not enough time in my day even during a pandemic!
But, then, I started to come across some posts that were far less outrageous, yet, also demonstrated a broad lack of knowledge even among people I consider to be educated, bright and articulate. It really surprised me. To try to see why, I posed the question “How many of you had an American Government or Civics class in middle school or HS” on my Facebook page and was shocked with the results. People I’d gone to school with were claiming they hadn’t, while I felt like most of what I learned about our government and about how it came to be, was in middle school social studies and high school American History. How was it that I knew all of it and so many of my classmates didn’t? It could be that I was interested in the subject then and they weren’t, much like my knowledge of geometry proofs today. Sure, I remember learning about them, and I guess that knowledge is floating somewhere up there in the mist of my brain, but I didn’t care about them then or now and so I never designated them as important. Or maybe because I went on to teach history, my knowledge was reinforced many times over and my classmates’ all happened one day in 8th grade or over the course of a few days freshman year. But here’s the difference, and I’m willing to challenge the math nerds out there, for whom I feel great respect, who really needs geometry proofs?
Somehow, someway soon, and preferably before November, we need to retrieve our collective civics knowledge back from the brain mist.
This is not meant to be a political post and I am not interested in who you plan to vote for in November. This post is meant to be a challenge. Americans are blessed to have hard earned and fought for rights, and hand in hand with that comes our individual and collective responsibility to continue to ensure them, something we can’t do without a clear understanding of who we are as a nation, how our system was created and how it practically functions. So if you find that your knowledge is incomplete or that you remember nothing other than the Schoolhouse Rock, song, “I’m Just a Bill on Capitol Hill,” it might be time to freshen up on your civics. I promise, it’s more interesting than geometry proofs, and it’s fundamentally more important to our daily lives as Americans. I challenge you to be able to answer the basic questions I posed at the beginning of this post, and once done with that, should you choose to make my heart sing and dig deeper, go read a little John Locke, or Montesquieu, and throw the “Magna Carta” in for kicks. And, please, feel free to start educating others on social media. Trust me, you’ll never run out of opportunities.
To Ms. Mills, Mr. Johnson, Mr. DiBattista and Mr. Giordano, I am eternally grateful! Thank you!