To the Editor:
Re “Trump’s Politics Are Changing How History and Civics Are Taught” (news article, Nov. 7):
As the historian John Hope Franklin once observed, “The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections and even prejudices of a given generation.” Sadly, this generation must add “alternative facts” and partisan revisionism to that list.
I have been teaching United States history to high school students for nearly three decades, and throughout that time, what we teach and how we teach it have always been open to debate.
What feels different now is the extent to which topics once considered universally accepted, or so-called settled issues, are being reopened for contestation.
It is troubling that we are once again examining questions such as whether Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election fairly or whether students should be taught the full brutality of slavery.
When we can no longer agree on basic facts, or even on the frameworks that help us interpret them, our capacity for meaningful civic dialogue is deeply compromised.
Julian Kenneth Braxton
Boston
To the Editor:
Your article asserts that “the Trump administration pushes to punish speech it dislikes and to impose its patriotic vision of American history on schools.”
Punishing speech is the opposite of any truly “patriotic vision.” Such a vision would require the president to respect the Constitution and accept dissent as crucial to a healthy democracy.
President Trump’s attempts to suppress freedom of speech and the honest investigation of the past are not just unpatriotic but also a repudiation of the best American values.
Charlotte Brooks
Brooklyn
The writer is a professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Democratic Pragmatism
To the Editor:
Re “Pragmatism Isn’t Sexy, but for Democrats, It Might Work” by Michelle Cottle (Opinion, Nov. 9):
And so it is Democrats who are first to recognize that the nature of most of the American electorate continues to be centrist, slightly left and a little bit right, and that this majority of sensible moderates has lost every ounce of patience with drama queens, of both the woke and MAGA variety.
Let the party choose a measured, calm political veteran for 2028. If it is willing to let him or her make the occasional positive comment about free markets and private enterprise, that candidate will secure the independent vote and draw into the fold non-MAGA Republicans abandoned by their party.
What a relief it will be for us to have someone to vote for.
Margaret McGirr
Greenwich, Conn.
Emergency Care at Risk
To the Editor:
Re “Can E.R.s Handle Hardest Cases?” (Science Times, Oct. 21):
Emergency physicians personally share the profound sorrow of a family who loses a loved one after seeking care in their departments. Every unexpected loss of life is tragic and warrants a pause to examine factors that may have led to that loss.
The article rightly identifies several difficult realities of emergency care; health care professionals are human and imperfect. And despite our best efforts, there are still times when our clinical exam and available testing do not give us a diagnosis. But the biggest barrier to optimal care is that emergency medicine is overstretched and underresourced.
As outlined in a 2025 RAND report, our current system is not sustainable. We must care for more patients with fewer staff members and available beds. Dangerous systemic bottlenecks, known as boarding, create avoidable risks as admitted patients sometimes remain in the emergency department for days, waiting for inpatient beds.
Patients can trust that emergency physicians will care for every patient. But we desperately need policy changes to ensure the viability of the emergency care safety net.
L. Anthony Cirillo
Saunderstown, R.I.
The writer is the president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
The post Teaching History in the Trump Era appeared first on New York Times.
