Every four years, on the first Tuesday of November, we vote for a new president. This year, the candidates on the ballot were Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Many people did not enjoy the candidates on the ballot this year, not agreeing with the idea of a female president. Yet, not agreeing with Trump either. The outcome however, resulted in Donald Trump winning not only the electoral vote, but also the majority.
Every time we talk about politics and the election, we think immediately of the adults and how they argue and how they feel. No one takes the time to consider the youth. Young adults, teenagers, and even some children have feelings about this years’ election and the way it will eventually affect them if it hasn’t already. As for thoughts and opinions, students at WHS have a lot to say about this election and have very strong feelings that they would like to voice.
Many students were pleased with the election results. They supported President Trump, and fully agree with everything he stands for and has done. Noah Shankle, our freshman homecoming prince, for instance, says that he wanted Trump to win and was excited when he heard the news. When I asked him why he supported Trump he said, “He already proved he does well in the office with his previous four years when he was first elected. I also really liked his no-war policy.” Noah, like many others are hopeful that Trump will go good things for America. They attribute Trump’s victory to his strong policies, his past record, and frustration with the Biden-Harris administration. A common sentiment in their responses is that Trump had a successful first term that voters remembered as one of financial stability and lower costs. As one Trump voter said, “I remember having more money and enough food to eat while he was I’m office” (Orth and Bialik).
Others students were relieved at Trump’s victory because they thought Harris was “underqualified”. They were looking forward to taxes and gas prices going down as well as the preservation of Christian principles. One student said, “I was surprised [but happy] that Trump won,” while others were surprised he didn’t win by a larger margin.
Some students had very strong, and in this case, emotional reactions to the results of the election: “I cried when I found out. He is a foul human being, the scum of the earth. I’d choose just about anyone over him. He’s a convicted felon! How did he get in the office? How did he win?” Grace Kneller said to me when I interviewed her. She seemed to be pretty outraged at the results and also worried for the safety of many of her friends who are poc, or under the LGBT umbrella.
Others reacted with sadness and fear. One student, Jonathan Reyes, said he feels that we’re pretty much doomed. When asked how safe or unsafe he felt on a scale of one through ten he said he felt, “Unsafe. On level ten.” When questioned about his thoughts on Trump, this is what he had to say, “I don’t know how a convicted felon made office. Is a black female president that bad? I’d change the turn out of the election if I could. I fear my rights might be taken away.”
This reaction was more common, as people across the country, mainly students, some as young as twelve, received racist text messages only a day after the election results came out. So far, no one knows who is sending these messages. An article called “Wave of Racist Texts After Election Prompts F.B.I’s Scrutiny” reports, “A spokesman apart of the Trump campaign named Steven Cheung said in an email that the campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these messages.” The messages refer to the recipient by first and last name stating that the message receiver has been selected to pick cotton and will be picked up in a “brown van”, usually at twelve pm by the sender’s “executive slaves” which will take the recipient to to a plantation where they will be “patted down” or searched; ending the message with the receiver’s assigned plantation group.
Another student named Kalissa Thomas also had something to say. She was one of the many students across the nation who’d received a racist text message from an unknown number. “The election was rigged,” she said. When I asked her about the message she’d received, and how she reacted to it, she said that she started to pack her belongings, thinking someone was actually going to come get her. “I wasn’t scared though, momma ain’t raise no punk. Forget Trump though, I prefer Kamala.”
I interviewed another student who received a text message as well. Damien Grant says that he is disappointed that Kamala didn’t win. He said he believed she had genuinely good ideas. When questioned about his reaction to the message he’d received, it was clear he didn’t take it seriously. When I asked how he reacted when he got the message, he said he “questioned the pay” and then laughed after. When I asked what he meant he said, “I mean we’re in a different century. We could be getting paid.”
Some students however, feel split on the election or that the other students opinions are uneducated. One young lady in particular, Moriah Lakew, says that she “feels like most of us aren’t even educated enough on politics to really say something about it. All they base it on is their disdain for Donald Trump. I feel like if Kamala Harris said half the things Trump says, they’d just go along with it because she isn’t Trump. They both have some ideas that are good and potentially helpful to America, but they both also have ideas that aren’t the most helpful. You really have to pay attention and listen for real.”
I also asked Moriah about the text messages, wondering if she’d heard about them or received one: “I didn’t get one, but I think they are so disgusting and disrespectful. For you to go out of your way to get someone else’s phone number and send them those things is just insane.” Despite her open mindedness about both candidates, she does still side with Kamala and would prefer Trump out of office. “There are more cons than pros to him staying in the office,” she said, but she believes both Democratic and Republican supporters are biased. “Kamala supporters only follow along with the idea of her being good and that Trump’s bad, and Trump supporters only go along with his good and her bad. You have to look at both sides, ya know?”
Enoch Odu agrees, saying, “Most of them are uneducated on politics anyways. They just see what’s on the internet and kinda run with it.” The ‘them’ he’s referring to being most teenagers out there. Which is true. It seems with the internet now, all it takes is one clip or one video, and people believe they have the whole story. Not many teenagers actually care about finding out the whole story.
Some students don’t even care. “I can’t vote yet so I don’t even care about politics,” stated a student passing by me during an interview. Another young man, Taylor Branson questions why we even vote at all: “I don’t really know how to feel. I kinda just think we should stop having presidents in general honestly. No matter what, there’s always gonna be someone that’s unhappy. We should just stop voting honestly. It’s stupid.” All understandable and quite valid feelings, yet it’s something we should think about. Should we just ignore these things because they don’t apply to us yet? Or should we educate ourselves to understand the ways we’ll be affected by what is happening around us?
It’s clear to see that this election means something to every student. From the ones who had emotional reactions to the election, or the students who think we should work harder to truly educate ourselves, down to the ones who don’t care about politics. They all have voices and opinions that aren’t being heard. It’s truly imperative that the generations before us educate the youth and actually care enough to shine light on us at times like these because in a few short years we’ll be adults. On another note, it’s very important that we as youth educate ourselves on these things because just basing your opinion on what you hear and deciding that that is what’s true is not smart either.
Knowledge is power, to have intelligence is to have strength and doing your own research to form your own thoughts and opinions is one of the best ways to have that power. We are the future whether we acknowledge it or not, and it’s important to be educated on these things so we can keep things in order. When you do that, it teaches you to think for yourself as well as to stand for something. If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.