Is the 'Trump effect' making kids mean? Hillary Clinton has a $500 million plan to fix it.

Hillary Clinton.
(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

At the second presidential debate, Hillary Clinton introduced the idea of a "Trump effect," in which Donald Trump's presence on the national stage has influenced the behavior of school children for the worse. "Bullying is up," she said, referencing anecdotal evidence from teachers and parents. "A lot of people are feeling uneasy, a lot of kids are expressing their concerns."

Now Clinton has proposed a $500 million anti-bullying initiative to fund a 10-year program in American schools. She described the plan Thursday as a "major new effort to help states and communities and schools and families end bullying wherever it takes place," again making the point that "teachers have reported that this election has made it worse."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.