We need a post-BS civics. In 2025, public officials seem unhealthily consumed by social media celebrity while longstanding civic norms are casually shattered. I don’t believe the problems are because of civics education but a post-BS civics could be part of the solution.

I mean, the U.S. owes $36 trillion in debt, is borrowing $2 trillion a year, and is spending $1 trillion a year just on interest payments. President Trump and a Republican Congress insist they’re tackling the problem but are eagerly pursuing a reconciliation package that’s going to make things worse. Of course, when Democrats had the wheel, they added as much debt as Senator Joe Manchin would permit.

Trump seems intent on trampling every federal law in sight. The only thing stopping him are the federal courts, which he’s proceeded to impugn as illegitimate. Of course, Democrats spent the last four years maligning the Supreme Court, smearing conservative members to undermine their legitimacy, and insisting the president should be able to pack the court.

Our Health and Human Services secretary, who inveighs against “corrupt” medical journals and urges people to “do your own research,” recently issued his grand “Make America Healthy Again” report—dotted with fake sources and false claims. Of course, after years spent mouthing untruths about Biden’s health and Covid’s origins, the Democrats and the legacy media are hardly credible critics.

Harvard and its elite brethren are under fire from a Trump administration that is making extortionate demands and operating by norms of vendetta rather than due process. Of course, Democrats would be better positioned to denounce Trump’s actions if they hadn’t cheered as the Obama and Biden teams pioneered ways to exert federal influence over higher ed through Title VI, Title IX, and student lending.

I could go on and on. There’s the shameless hypocrisy with which the left and right takes turns decrying and celebrating executive action, weaponized law enforcement, “pen and phone” immigration policy, and so much else. Both tribes are running roughshod over basic norms, guardrails, and rules of the road. The depredations of each camp fuel (and help justify) those of the other.

Now, it’d be unfair to blame schools for this political misconduct and civic malpractice. I’d lay most of the blame on social media, the erosion of civil society, the decline of political parties, and the rise of political celebrity. We’ve lapsed into a civic ethos of rights over rules, of passion over process, and of issues over institutions.

But. Schools are a crucial place for addressing this lapse in civic virtues and promoting healthier habits. And even the attempt can offer an excuse to talk (if only for a moment) about ground rules and responsibilities.

What do I have in mind? Honestly, the particulars may matter less than the principle. We need to be brutally clear that civic education is not about passions or participation. At a time when voting is at historic highs, politics has become entertainment, and ideologically-motivated murder has become a GoFundMe cause, “action civics” is the last thing we need. As I put it five years ago, after January 6, 2021:

Telling students to support their favorite candidates or causes is . . . the easy part of civic education. What’s harder and more important is teaching the habits of mind—not just the knowledge—that sustain the American system. This requires a fealty to laws, a respect for institutions, an appreciation for checks and balances, and the confidence that defeats are not cataclysmic.

What should that look like? I’m open to ideas. As someone who was teaching high school civics back in the last century, this is a topic I’ve been noodling on for a very long time without devising any uber-sophisticated answers. That said, I think some calls to reform civics education have become overcomplicated or tried to do too much.

If we contemplate what’s gotten lost amidst all our hypocritical back-and-forth, I’d argue we need to focus intently on the rules, processes, and institutions that undergird a free society. (If you’re a critical theorist who wants to inveigh against all of that as a tool of systemic oppression, go find a cozy corner and let the grown-ups try to address the problems that your faculty-lounge musings have only aggravated.)

Just to kick off a concrete discussion of what I have in mind, I’ll offer a half-dozen things I’d love to see schools emphasize:

1. The astonishing success and good fortune of the American republic

2. The problems with unchecked executive authority

3. The rationale for appealing to the separation of powers, federalism, and the filibuster to curb narrow, temporary, or inflamed majorities

4. The historic case for the limiting principles of enumerated powers, judicial oversight, and the Bill of Rights

5. The reasons the Founders accorded such respect to civil society, the press, and religious faith

6. The importance of the due-process safeguards articulated in the Bill of Rights

There’s much more one might add, of course. And I’d love to hear other and better suggestions. The key takeaway, though, is that none of this is about an inalienable right to be heard, always getting the stuff we want, or an obligation to take sides in the great hypocritical scrum. It’s about helping students understand that rules and institutions protect all of us. After all, if your team does something to the other side and gets away with it, your opponent can do it back to you. I find this tends to be intuitive to kids. And the optimal time to avert a civics of retribution is before they’ve cast their lot with one team or the other.

A month or two back, some professors at the University of Pennsylvania decided to protest Trump administration policies. How’d they do it? They read from the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers. I love it. That’s the kind of protest I’ll endorse every day. And, hell, that shouldn’t just be protest fodder—that should be the foundation of a civics reading list.

Frederick Hess is an executive editor of Education Next and the author of the blog “Old School with Rick Hess.”