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Critical pedagogy and the purpose of educational research in an age of “alternative facts”

On November 8, 2016 Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States of America. People like myself on the left side of the political spectrum, were largely blindsided. Trump is a blowhard, a bully, a conman, a racist, misogynist and a xenophobe, and it seemed inconceivable that he would be elected. This isn’t to say that I thought someone who held discriminatory views of diverse peoples could not feasibly be elected into office. We live in a colonial, patriarchal, Eurocentric nation birthed in genocide and slavery (Grande 2004), and this history continues to shape lives as racism and androcentrism are structurally embedded in U.S. culture and social institutions (Patel 2015). It was also conceivable that a person who lies would be elected President. History has shown that presidents do lie or bend the truth to some degree. One only needs to conjure up memories of Richard Nixon and Watergate, Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra, or Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Still, I believed in the importance of facts for informing how people cast their ballots. Furthermore, as a researcher and educator, my livelihood and my professional commitments depend on facts. Truthfulness and accuracy are crucial for my credibility as an expert. For these reasons, I could not believe that a man who held a clear disregard for facts would be elected by an informed public. According to Politifact (2018), during the first two years of Trump’s presidency 69% of Trump’s statements were mostly to completely false, whereas only 16% of the time his statements were mostly or completely true, and 15% of the time, they were half true. In contrast, Hillary Clinton’s scorecard on Politifact showed her statements as 50% mostly or all true, 23% half true, and only 26% mostly or completely false. Although both candidates were deeply flawed, albeit in different ways, I still believed that facts would play a significant role in the outcome of the election. Yet, here we are, with not just a politician who sometimes lies but a liar who is sometimes a politician in our most important government office. In Trump’s world, facts don’t mean much, public opinion is more important (but not all public opinions, just the ones that affirm his opinions and