I raised my children in a liberal enclave and was sure that their teachers were using the classrooms to proselytize for their leftist faith.  I never had proof, though.  The surprise benefit of the Wuhan virus lockdowns, with the resulting insistence on distance learning for children, is that parents finally get to see what their children's classrooms are like.  That's how, in Tacoma, Washington, a mother witnessed a teacher bring cancel culture to bear on her 10-year-old son.

During an online "chat session" with his students, Brendan Stanton, who teaches at P.G. Keithley Middle School, gave his students a question: "Who is the person you admire and why?"  Rather than speaking aloud, the children wrote their answers in the chat room.  

Elsy Kusander's 10-year-old son admires President Donald Trump, and he explained why:

I admire Donald J. Trump because he is making America great again. And because he is the best president the United States of America could ever, ever have. And he built the wall so terrorists couldn't come into in the U.S. Trump is the best person in the world. And that's why I admire him.

A teacher who does not like the president, but who still has a sense of professional responsibility and understands that public education cannot be partisan, would have let that pass.  However, when he heard Trump's name and saw the boy praise a policy with which he disagrees, Brendan Stanton was not that teacher.  He became an ideologue who used his classroom to indoctrinate his students into his political views.

According to Jason Rantz, who has a radio show on AM 770 KTTH, Stanton instantly kicked the boy off the chat (because you're never too young to experience "cancel culture" for impure thinking), deleted what the boy had written, and told the classroom why it's wrong to support "that individual," as he called Trump.  The boy called for his mother (Kusander), who came in with her camera ready to capture what happened.

The video picks up with Stanton telling the entire classroom:

The example that was shared in the chat, which I went ahead and erased for us, was not appropriate right? Especially as that individual has created so much division and hatred between people and specifically spoken hatred to many different individuals, OK? Again, that individual has spoken hate to many individuals and I don't think is an appropriate example for a role model that we should be admiring.

Significantly, Stanton cannot make himself speak Trump's name.  For leftists,  Trump has morphed into Voldemort, the character so evil that, in Harry Potter's fictional wizarding world, he is "He Who Cannot Be Named."  As you contemplate that thought, consider that Trump has governed as a completely mainstream political candidate circa 1960 to 2008, when Democrats made such a hard left turn that they entirely abandoned all prior American political norms.

To get back to the story, Stanton did not realize that Kusander had recorded him.  When she challenged him about what happened, Stanton prevaricated.  He first tried to say Donald Trump was not a responsive answer to the question. He then claimed that another student's comment made Stanton feel that it was appropriate to delete any praise for Trump.

Then, boldly, Stanton stated, "I try to keep politics out of the classroom."  He explained that the problem wasn't Trump's name or his office; it was the mention of Trump's securing the border that was the problem.  "[W]e know that our neighbors at the southern border are not all terrorists, right?"

Despite my profound disrespect for Stanton as a teacher (because I've dealt with so many Stantons over the years), he should still get credit where credit is due: when Stanton spoke with Kusander, a call that she recorded, he was polite and respectful throughout the phone call.  He listened quietly and without argument as Kusander quite rationally explained why a country has borders and why she loves America.

Many leftists in 2020 have abandoned even that kind of basic civility.  Additionally, at the end of the call, Stanton apologized to Kusander and asked if he could apologize to her son.  Good for him.

One of the silver linings in the cloud that is America's insanity is that it has exposed to non-politicized Americans the fact that colleges and universities are hyper-political institutions scamming parents and taxpayers out of money far in excess of what's being taught, and that America's K–12 schools often trap students in classrooms presided over by leftist political divas who can't resist the bully pulpit their classrooms represent.

Image: Boys at computers. CC0 Public Domain.