Numerous schools across the country have chosen to cancel classes on Election Day, according to a report from NBC News. School officials quoted in that report claim the reasons range from the expectation of large voter turnout to overcrowding — even to possible violence.
Schools in Easton, Pennsylvania, will close on Nov. 8. Schools in Falmouth, Maine, will close. Some districts will move their polling places as well.
A USA Today/Suffolk University Poll found that 51 percent of likely voters expressed at least some concern about the possibility of violence on Election Day — and one in five are “very concerned.”
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Only 40 percent said they are “very confident” about a “peaceful transfer of power.”
All this speaks directly to the high emotional frenzy the country has worked itself into over the presidential election. Should we, as parents, actually keep our kids home from school that day?
That’s obviously a decision for each individual parent to make — but the concern expressed does seem overblown.
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Right off the bat, any actual threat is likely reduced by 50 percent. How many Donald Trump supporters have you heard about causing violence? Should anything actually happen, it’s more likely to be conducted by Democrats, given their sordid history of threats to conservative speakers. They’ve egged women at Trump rallies and possibly firebombed a GOP office in North Carolina — then there’s the WikiLeaks revelation that Clinton campaign operatives were using brownshirt techniques to engender violence at Trump rallies.
A number of tweets from those in the mainstream media, of course, are insisting any violence is because of Trump’s undermining of democracy. Vox even said, “Scholars say there is a serious risk of violence on Election Day, and it is Trump’s fault” — only to be smacked down with this reply: “Was it difficult for you to find sympathetic ‘scholars’ in the American collegiate landscape? Heard liberal profs are rare.”
Then we discount the possibility of violence further because there is no electioneering permitted anywhere from within 50 to 200 feet of a polling place, depending on state law.
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The threat of actual violence is reduced substantially further because, at the core, most Americans are decent people who simply disagree on politics. There have been virtually no reports of actual violence on Election Day in America, and those that have occurred are localized and statistically minuscule.
That’s also because one concept of elections is for the peaceful transfer of power.
There are plenty of angry liberals, to be sure — but in general, it is far more likely for a mob to use violence in group settings than an individual. Individuals are emboldened when they turn into a group, and the idea that a mob of angry liberals would storm a polling place seems unlikely, even for them. The effort involved in organizing such a group alone seems like a stretch.
Here’s another thought: Remember in 2008, when the Left was terrified that mobs of angry racists would try to disrupt the election to suppress votes for Barack Obama? Didn’t happen. The opposite actually occurred, in the form of the now-famous photo of two Black Panthers standing outside a polling place in Philadelphia.
Related: Election Lesson for Kids: Stand Up for Your Beliefs
If anything, it seems like this is just another media ploy to suppress Trump turnout, by creating fear in the population to dissuade voting. If you or your school district are scared enough to keep your kids home, maybe you’ll be too scared to vote.
As parents, it’s also our job to keep our children’s understanding of the world simple and concise. If school is canceled, explain why to your children, but also let them know that it seems like an overabundance of caution.
Voting is an essential part of America — as is school.
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