Political indoctrination is when an individual instills political values onto a younger generation. Of course, everyone hears different biased things as they grow up about a variety of topics from their parents and other adults. However, a child cannot really decide their true feelings on these issues until they are well into their teenage years in most cases. This is why using children as political tools is so wrong. If we can’t trust children to vote, then why should they be the faces of political campaign events or wear signage to rallies?

The American people are voting for the next president in November, and it seems that different moves by the candidates are making the news every day. Although there are various highly qualified prospective leaders running, some less qualified candidates are making the headlines quite often. Donald Trump raises his levels of offensiveness on the daily by utilizing hate as the main component of his campaign. There are many people identifying with this hate, which is horrible as is, but many are pushing these values of hatred onto younger generations to use them as a political tool.

At one of Trump’s recent rallies, he had a performance by a group called ‘Freedom Kids.’ As the name suggests, this group consists of young girls who sing about different political themes. At the rally, three out of five of the girls in the group sang lyrics endorsing Trump’s agenda. Here's the video:

This performance gives off a robotic vibe, as the girls sing lyrics that they most likely do not understand. It is somewhat symbolic of the Holocaust-era videos of children singing in honor of Hitler or even the forced labor of individuals in North Korea who did not mourn the death of their leader. We see these forced views upon people and children in other countries wrong, so why don’t we do the same for a United States presidential candidate? Forcing people to express views that they do not actually feel or cannot fully decide whether they believe or not is not OK, especially in the case of children.

Obviously, the use of these children as a campaign tool was not really an ethical choice for Donald Trump, or for the children’s parents. However, other people and candidates from all parts of the political spectrum have used children as posters for their political agendas. When you look at it as infringing on their right to choose their own political views, you can see that it can be damaging for the children. This political indoctrination by Trump of the girls is anything but “fiercely free,” as the lyrics exclaim.