WEBVTT - Nurturing the Next Generation of Responsible, Informed Citizens 0:00:02.560 --> 0:00:06.880 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:11.360 This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:18.840 Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio. Die did you well. 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:21.640 If others have. 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:29.040 Did slowly go, Yeah, you're gonna understand maybe what we 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.240 need to be doing with all of our kids that 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:33.480 are at them. I've got them, Tim's got them, You've 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:34.600 got them. I'm sure. 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:35.360 Uh. 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.120 And there's something important when it comes to understanding politics, 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:42.960 but probably more importantly, how our government works. 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.680 Okay, So here's some numbers that might freak you out, Carol. 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:46.120 Okay. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:51.360 According to a twenty twenty three Annenberg Constitution Day Civic survey, 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.600 nearly one in five Americans cannot name a single branch 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:56.320 of government. 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:57.960 You and I can do it. We did a test. 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.120 Before we did a test. It's executive, legislative, and judicial, 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.160 by the way, but yeah, nearly one in five can't 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:05.600 name a single one of those branches. 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:06.200 Twenty percent. 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:06.680 Yeah. 0:01:07.360 --> 0:01:10.039 So perhaps not surprising given the state of civics education 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.120 in the US. Recording to the Committee for Economic Development 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:16.119 It's the Public policy center of the Conference Board, only 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:18.600 seven states require a full year of civics or government 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.120 in schools. And thirteen states have no civics course requirements. 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:23.440 I didn't take a Civics class, did you? 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:24.080 Not? 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:25.640 In high school I learned about government. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.160 Yeah, yeah, yeah, not do it in high school. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:30.160 You're right, I don't know. 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:31.000 I just all right. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.680 Anyway, a lot at stake. If Americans really don't know 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.200 how their government works, just ask Lindsay Kormack. She is 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.199 Associate professor of political Science and director of the Diplomacy 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.000 Lab at Steven's Institute of Technology, my dad's alma mater. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:45.600 By the way, she got a new book out about 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.680 all of this. It's entitled How to Raise a Citizen 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:51.800 and Why It's up to You to do It? And 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.040 she joins us right here in New York City. Professor Kormack, 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:56.920 Great to have you here with us. We feel like 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.480 there's so much we want to talk about, including book, 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:05.800 but we are very interested also because of your background 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:12.000 in hearing about your thoughts on today's presidential political environment 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:15.280 and that's all of that's also too been going on 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:17.839 in the past month. Is this, in your view, democracy 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:18.280 at work? 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:19.880 Yeah? 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:20.640 I really think it is. 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:22.520 You know, we have systems in place for it doesn't 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.000 go the way that everyone thinks it's going to go, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:25.920 and it seems like it's it's working out in the 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:27.280 selection of a new candidate. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.399 How do you what do you mean, how's it working 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:31.840 out in the selection of a new candidate? 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:34.440 Well, I mean when Biden stepped down and a lot 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:35.519 of people were like, oh, is there going to be 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.520 an open convention? How are we going to pick someone? 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.040 And really at that point it was already at the delegates, 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.079 and because of our primary system, it's like, well, they're 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:43.880 deciding it's going to be common one, and that's how 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:44.440 it's going to be. 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:47.560 You know, It's funny because it's just I've been listening 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.920 to a lot of podcasts political podcast Tim has too, 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.280 and we've all kind of we've been doing mega deep 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:54.840 dives just because of everything that's going on. And I 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.560 heard something that said, you know, we're still a young country, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.799 and other countries have seen a lot of you know, 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:04.679 the kind of their ups and downs over hundreds and 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:08.600 hundreds of years or even longer, you know, And I guess, 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.680 you know, we asked the question, and we've seen the Democrats, 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:13.959 at least President Biden was for a long time while 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.280 he was still in the campaign trail as saying, you know, 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:17.880 we've got to protect democracy. 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:18.840 It's really important. 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.040 But democracy isn't necessarily working for everyone who feel like 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:26.960 they're struggling to put food on their table, make sure 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.480 there's a roof over their heads, just struggling to make 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:34.920 monthly payments. Is democracy, though, working for everyone? 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:36.760 I mean, that's a great question. Yeah, that's it's a 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:38.760 really good question. Isn't working for everyone? It works in 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:39.440 different ways. 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:41.840 I think the relevant comparison might be like what a 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:43.880 life would look like under an autocracy, and I think 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:45.640 it probably looks worse for people who are having a 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.240 bad time here. And so I think one of the 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:49.880 problems is we don't really know how to engage in 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.240 our democracy to necessarily make it work for us. And 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:53.920 that's kind of the research that I'm into and what 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:54.520 I'm all about. 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.200 That's interesting, Lindsay and Carrol, an interesting thing that you 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.440 brought up. I don't know if you can read my mind, 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:01.200 but as I was praying for this, I was looking 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.760 at some stats to try to set this up. The 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.720 American Bar Association. Lindsay says that less than one third 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.040 of millennials considered essential to live in a democracy. 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.920 Huh, why see that's what it's slight everywhere. Yeah, I 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:17.000 mean part of it is we don't have a tradition 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.760 of really talking about this in a very positive way, 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.719 and instead our children get messages from really early ages 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.839 that like, government is bad, it's annoying, it's negative. And 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:27.880 so it's not surprising to me that people think, like, uh, 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.320 it's not really worth fighting for or worth working towards. 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:32.760 But I don't think that's true. None of our millennials 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:34.360 know what it's like to live under an autocracy, and 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:35.920 I don't think they'd like it that much more. 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.560 So, how do you Yeah, so let's talk about that. 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:39.960 I mean, I have a twenty one year old and 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.800 has young kids. You know, my daughter will remind me 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.320 of how we've kind of messed up everything for her generation. 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.200 We talk a lot of politics. She is the daughter 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:54.280 of two journalists and folks who have been in the 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.520 news business, so it comes up a lot. I had 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.800 a family that we talked abound the dinner table about 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.960 a lot of stuff that was going on. But how 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:04.880 do you think we should be approaching it with a 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.680 younger generation And how early do you start on all 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:08.280 of this stuff? 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:09.440 Yeah? 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.680 So you well are lucky, because that's that's atypical. Most 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:13.839 of our families don't have those sorts of discussions. In 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:15.279 research that we did for the book, we found that 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.400 only twenty five percent of eighteen year olds report that 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.480 they ever had an intentional discussion about politics or government 0:05:20.480 --> 0:05:23.479 with their parents. And my sort of stance on this 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:26.160 is you can't start it too early because kids are 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:27.880 just trying to make sense of the world around them. 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:29.840 They're soaking it up. So if they hear us talking, 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.160 you know, like saying like politicians are all bad or 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.880 they're negative, they're liars, they're cheaters, they're going to hear that. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.160 And so it's not that not talking to them doesn't 0:05:37.160 --> 0:05:38.960 give them a message. They sometimes just pick up the 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.080 negative pieces. So it's up to us to kind of 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:43.280 recast the narrative around this in front of them. 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.520 Okay, and I have a large family, a lot of 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:49.320 nieces and nephews. What do you do though, when a 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.960 twenty something year old or an early thirties like, yeah, 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:56.839 all the politicians they're really lousy. What's the right response? 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:58.800 How do you deal with that? Where they're kind of 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.200 so set in their view. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:04.200 Yeah, so when I hear something like that. 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.800 I usually think that people are talking about federal politicians 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:08.719 and I try to change the conversation and think about 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:11.080 who their local and state representatives are. Yeah, because for 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:12.720 the most part, the people who do this work at 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:13.400 lower levels. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:15.600 They're not bad. They're not out there to do ill. 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:17.719 They're really trying their best, and oftentimes they're not that 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.719 well supported financially. The jobs don't pay that well. People 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:22.240 yell at them, and so really I think most of 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.800 the people doing our politics are trying their best. 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:26.680 You know, we hear what you said. We hear a 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:28.719 lot from the mayors we talk to. We check in 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.680 with mayors around the country quite a bit, and oftentimes 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:36.400 they are Democrats or Republicans. They're required to have a 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.400 party affiliation, but regardless of what party there and they 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.440 don't really consider themselves members of a certain political party 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.800 because their job is to come up with solutions to 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:50.440 fixing potholes and making sure that things are running on 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.360 time in a small city or in a metropolitan area. 0:06:53.839 --> 0:06:58.440 And it's an interesting issue because there is this separation 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.760 between the local level versus what happens on the federal level, 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.880 and so much air is taken out by national politics, 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.080 and that's sort of the vibe that people pick up on. 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:12.720 Yeah, that's absolutely true. 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:15.040 You know, we talk about federal politics more than anything else, 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.080 despite the fact that local politics is some of the 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.720 most consequential for our quality of life decisions. 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:23.080 You know, it's funny my husband and I, as I said, 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:24.880 he's a news guy too, and it just said, you know, 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:26.920 when he was kind of working his way up, you 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.400 always went to the town hall meetings and local politics. 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:32.400 And part of it is, you know, the demise of 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:36.040 local journalism, Like there's just no reporting on it anymore. 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:39.480 And so it's all kind of the same stuff. As 0:07:39.520 --> 0:07:41.679 you said, a lot of it at the federal level, 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:44.440 but it's not really getting down to you know, what's 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.760 happening on a different level. I mean, it is why 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.600 I will be Tim's right, like we love talking to mayors, 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.000 We love talking to governors, Like what's going on in 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.520 your state, what's going on in your towns, it's really important. 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:58.720 All right. So you've got a five year old, how 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:00.920 do you teach them about government? How do you teach 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:01.800 them about civics? 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:04.040 Yeah, I think if you have a five year old, 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.120 the point is just to make sure that you are 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.520 comfortable doing it in front of them, have conversations around them, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.440 have conversations in front of them. We don't need to 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:12.920 raise like little government trivia experts, you know. They don't 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:14.720 need to know all the presidents. They don't need to 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:15.040 know how. 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:16.280 Bill becomes a law at that age. 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:18.960 But it's about giving them the vocabulary, letting them hear 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:20.560 these words so they can kind of start to make 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.480 sense of it. For every other subject, we start kindergarten 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.640 with little concepts, little vocap and we build. But for government, 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:28.520 a lot of the times we wait until they're almost 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.200 eighteen and then say like, here, we're going to teach 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.360 you everything right now. And so it's just this idea 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.040 of scaffolding, like we do with every other skill and subject. 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:37.760 Okay, so parents can't always be the ones who are 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:39.719 doing this because they're not necessarily the ones who are 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:41.240 doing this. What's your view on how this should be 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:42.000 taught in schools? 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.120 So we do need to take an approach that prioritizes 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:48.960 things younger, like we do with everything else. Well, a 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:50.280 lot of the ways that we do this is very 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.560 idiosyncratic because states will say here's how we think we 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:54.360 should do it. But then it gets further devolved down 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.520 to school boards, or it gets devolved down to counties, 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:58.400 and so we don't have a unified curriculum. We never 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:00.840 are going to. But the thing that we can do 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:04.199 is start earlier and start building over time instead of 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:06.920 just backloading everything in that second semester of senior year 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.320 when kids really aren't that receptive to new information anyhow. 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.240 You know what's interesting, I'm getting some messages from a 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:15.320 member of our audience who says that the kids aren't 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:19.600 necessarily the problem. It's the parents who seem to be 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:24.720 the least educated, the most susceptible to misinformation online. We 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:26.800 only have thirty seconds left, then we're going to come. Actually, 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:27.760 we have a little more time with you. 0:09:28.600 --> 0:09:29.480 Those grown up kids. 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:30.040 What do we do with that? 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:30.280 Yeah? 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:31.400 What do we do with those grown ups? 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:33.319 Yes? You know what. That's one of the reasons I 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:34.720 wrote this book in the way I did. The first 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:36.440 half is sort of like, here's the problem, here's what 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.160 our kids need to know, And the second half is 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:40.640 a primer because I understand that people who are parenting today, 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:43.720 we are products of systems that were deprioritizing civic education. 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:45.320 A lot of times we had parents who were not 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:48.400 comfortable talking about these topics, and so whoever's pointing that 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:50.760 out to you, I share that viewpoint with the parents. 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:52.760 We need a little bit more education here too, and 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.760 that's sort of what this effort is about. 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:57.360 How do you You know, it's interesting because I think 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:02.240 we've all had conversations with adults where it gets heated, 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:08.439 and you know, how do you how do you how 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:10.320 do you have that conversation like, well, wait a minute, 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:12.600 you don't really understand how this works, Like how do 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.480 you do that in an environment where there's just a 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:17.440 lot of anger and nobody wants to listen. 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:19.480 Yeah, I'll tell you the strategy. 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:21.640 I'm mostly talking with college students, like eighteen to twenty 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.040 year olds, and they get heated too. But instead of 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.240 asking someone what they think or why they believe that, 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.040 the first question I always like to ask is what 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.080 have you heard about that? Because I think when you 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.760 ask someone what have you heard, it removes them from 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:36.920 having the responsibility of defending or justifying a position. They 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:38.880 can say, oh, I heard this on Twitter, Oh I 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:41.160 heard this from my uncle or whatever it is, and 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:42.920 then you can kind of work with that instead of 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.079 putting it on them to defend whatever it is they're 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:46.079 trying to think. 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.679 Source matters, right, It's funny that, I mean, I find 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:51.480 myself doing that to a lot, Like where did you 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:52.400 hear that it does? 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.320 But I think one challenge now is the polarization that 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.440 we see on these online platforms. So you have, you know, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.080 a for example, the Elon Musk, the owner of X, 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:08.199 has endorsed Donald Trump and he has hosted a conversation 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.520 with him on the platform, and he is in complete 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:16.200 control of that platform. Can you imagine the outrage that 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:21.680 you'd hear from folks out there if you saw that 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:23.760 on the flip side of like if it was more 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.000 open you mean, or no if it but if you 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.360 saw the opposite, like on Facebook or something like the 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:30.120 CEO of. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:34.440 Oh, like if Zuckerberg sat down with Kamala Harris. 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.520 Yeah exclusively or endorses her. 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.480 Yeah. Yeah, you know what that might be like a 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.720 pulse on current politics because I imagine that that probably 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.680 would have more outreach than what happened with one point 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.720 two million people listening to Elon Musk and Donald Trump. 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.000 But yeah, it's hard to know, but you're probably right 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:53.880 your intuition there kind of goes with what I would 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:54.240 think too. 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.600 Let's get back to our guest. We're talking with Lindsay Kormack. 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.800 She's Associate Professor of Political Science, director of the Diplomacy 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:04.199 Life at Steven's Institute of Technology. Her new book, How 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.640 to Raise a Citizen and Why It's up to You 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:08.520 to Do It. She is still with us in New 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.400 York City. Hey, Lindsey, we mentioned that you have got 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:17.280 basically five rules or five skills that you think kids 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.360 ought to have. Can we go through them? 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:20.040 Sure? 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:21.400 Thing, This is the things that you need to go 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:23.280 over with your kids before they leave your house, so 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.880 before they're gone for college or whatever awaits them after. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:27.840 The first one is they need to know how to 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.280 have hard conversations. And one of the reasons that I 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:32.320 know that that's true is as a college professor, I 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.520 have students who are afraid to upset anyone and they're 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.440 afraid to feel this discomfort themselves, and so that's like 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:39.120 a big skill that we need to make sure that 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.640 they have. The second one is parents need to make 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:43.600 sure their kids know how to register to vote, and 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:45.840 then they have to change it when they move. I 0:12:45.920 --> 0:12:48.000 take our kids just to vote every year when we 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.160 have an election, and without fail, some of them are 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.280 turned away because they thought they were registered and they 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.200 don't realize that if you're registered in one county, it 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.400 doesn't transfer to the other. So make sure that they 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.200 understand how to do this and how they change that 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.360 when they move. The third one is they need to 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.880 understand the difference between primaries and general elections. All too 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.240 often we only focus on general elections when we talk 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.120 about this in schools, and so they really miss out 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:10.240 on this big piece of power, which is picking someone 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.199 in a primary election. The third thing is they need 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.040 to have an understanding of federalism because we so are 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.320 the fourth thing. Rather, we oftentimes focus on the federal level, 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:21.920 and then they don't realize that state and local governments 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.800 control so many things. When we think about big policy 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:28.440 issues like gun licensing, or healthcare or marijuana policy, things 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:30.960 that matter to young voters, this happens at the state 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:33.040 level for the most part, and so having an appreciation 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:34.840 of these different levels it's an important thing for them 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.080 to have. And the fifth one, and this is a 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:38.840 hard sell, but a lot of parents that I'm talking 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.240 to are pretty receptive to it. Your kids need to 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.960 have read the Constitution at least once before they leave 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.640 your house. It's our charter of government is the rules 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:48.760 of the game. And once they have an understanding of it, 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.880 they can't be as suayed with bad information or misinformation 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:53.880 because they'll really just have a rooted understanding of what 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:54.960 our system is all about. 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.160 And yes, you could start with Hamilton, like it'll get 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:01.439 you really excited like that. No, seriously, like I think 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.160 about something like that gets people interested, like, oh wait 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:07.280 a minute, this is really our history in a fun form. 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:10.360 But there's a lot of information there. What is it 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.800 that the kids that you teach eighteen to twenty one, 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.840 twenty two, you've got a young daughter too. But I 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:19.640 am curious about the questions that come up the most 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.360 when it comes to government politics. What do they want 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:24.840 to know? What is it that they're like, I don't 0:14:24.880 --> 0:14:27.000 really understand this. I feel like when there's a piece 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.720 of legislation going through Congress, we all are kind of like, wait, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:32.880 where are we in this process? And where are we 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.080 and what vote is this and how does this work? 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:37.920 Because there's still things, I think the mechanics that don't 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:40.160 always make sense or don't you know, there's just it 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:42.640 feels like nuances do it. But anyway, what do kids 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:43.800 ask you the most? 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:45.360 I mean, I wish I could tell you that there 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.400 was this one thing that they didn't understand, But truly 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.000 they're lost. Like their understanding of the courts is based 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:52.960 on like courtroom drama TV. Their understanding of the presidency 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.440 is sort of like whatever they've seen on Instagram or 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:56.360 TikTok that morning. 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:57.800 And when it comes to like how the. 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.240 Legislature works, it's really hard and so it's not something 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:03.120 where we can fix it overnight. But I do think 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:04.800 that if we start a little earlier, if we're a 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:06.960 little bit more intentional about it, and we recognize that 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:08.960 we have a role as families in writing this thing, 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:11.360 we can get to a lot of their questions because 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:12.800 they're kind of lost all over the place. 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.320 Do the social platforms have a role too? You mentioned 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.760 Instagram and TikTok just now, how do you see them? 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.880 I mean, they're already here. They're going to be here 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.880 for good, I think, and so we have to understand 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.360 what they are. I think something that parents can do is, 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:29.680 you know, we're not going to see the same things 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.200 as our kids. We're algorithmically fed different things. We all 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:33.920 know this, and something that I argue in my book 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.320 is that take a little time with each other and say, like, 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:37.840 what is it that you're seeing and make sure that 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.040 you kind of have an understanding of what their algorithm 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.040 feeds them, and let them see what you're getting fed 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.040 as well. That way, you can talk about things with 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.240 a better understanding of the background inputs that either side has. 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:51.840 You know, we talked about education, tim you asked earlier. 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:54.800 I think let's you some questions. But do we need 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:58.680 to have mandatory civics classes in school? Do we need 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:00.720 to have a Civics test before people vote? 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.120 I don't think a civics test is necessarily the way 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.440 to do it. The people who study like education, the 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:08.920 people who are experts in this field, always come back 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.040 to this idea of action civics, which is like giving 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.000 kids a project so that they can really see how 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:15.000 the process works. You know, they find like a playground 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:17.120 and say, oh, our basketball courts are kind of cracked 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:18.920 and they don't really work. How can we figure out 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.040 how to fix that? And that process is you know, 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.840 figuring out which branch of government is responsible, which level 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.360 is responsible, trying to figure out how you activate to 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.240 talk to those people, and even if you don't succeed 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:30.640 in getting better basketball courts, you understand a lot more 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.920 about the process. And so the people who study that 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:34.560 sort of like what can we do in schools, they 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.640 mostly point to action civics versus study for a test, 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:39.880 get ten answers right and go on with your life. 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:44.960 The January sixth riot on the Capitol was that, I mean, 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:48.600 how do you think about that in our political history? 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:53.880 And I'm just thinking, like, does it make you nervous? 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.720