Monday, November 21, 2016
News
President-elect Donald Trump elicits anger, excitement from students By Jordan Liu, Cissy Ming and Sanjana Sanghani Web Editor, Copy Editor and Staff Reporter Senior Jack Roeder wants ’Stoga to calm down. A Young Republicans member and self-avowed conservative, Roeder expected GOP nominee Donald Trump to prevail in an electorate “afraid” to speak openly about its support for him. He views the student body’s reactions to the election as overly emotional, instead emphasizing the opportunities for political dialogue. “People are afraid of political discussion and they say ‘oh, we’re in high school, we shouldn’t talk politics,’ but it is necessary because if you don’t form your opinions now, you won’t have them when you’re older,” Roeder said. To mixed reactions from Conestoga’s student body, Trump became president-elect of the United States on Nov. 8 after winning the Electoral College despite narrowly losing the popular vote to former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton. Down ballot, Republicans retained control over both houses of Congress and added to their recent gains in the states. According to the Spoke’s October polling, over 60 percent of Conestoga students eligible to vote supported Clinton with just under 20 percent favoring Trump. The businessman’s victory shocked and disappointed freshman J.P. Infortuna given his assumption that Clinton, his preferred candidate, held more widespread popularity. Clinton “was able to in�luence people because, plain and simple, she wasn’t Donald Trump,” Infortuna said. “During the election, it was a little horrifying and grotesque to see how he acted.” Among Conestoga’s liberal students, some protested the election results by vowing to sit through the Pledge of Allegiance for the duration of Trump’s presidency. Others displayed their opposition more visibly, attending Melania Trump’s pre-election rally at the Berwyn Sports Center with signs and slogans criticizing her husband. On Nov. 9, Clinton buttons, shirts and stickers appeared in the hallways alongside pro-Trump messages. Senior Declan Kahley, co-president of Young Democrats, claims
the election inspired such strong feelings because of its unique signi�icance for the future of national policy. “The two candidates are very polarizing and the media has sensationalized the election,” Kahley said. “The fact that whoever won this election would have gotten to chose the Supreme Court justices shows how different this election is from others.” However, Trump’s unpopularity among large sections of the population resonated with a small but committed group of fans at ’Stoga, including freshman Mason Thorne. Thorne celebrated what he considers a major event in American politics post-election with other Trump supporters. “Trump appeals to a wide variety of supporters and I’m glad he’s won, as his beliefs align with mine,” Thorne said. Trump “is an outsider. People don’t want that clean-cut politician anymore because we just cannot trust them being bought by big businesses.” Matt Lloyd, deputy chief of staff-communications and strategy for Vice President-elect Mike Pence, welcomes Republican successes at the state and national levels as a popular mandate for conservative policies. “People gravitated to Trump’s message of less regulation, lower taxes, repealing Obamacare and replacing it with something that actually works,” Lloyd said. “It was evident with the results at the polls on Tuesday.” In the days leading up to Election Day, most scienti�ic polls indicated that Clinton lead Trump by 2 to 4 percentage points. Nearly all projections estimated that Democrats had an easy path to victory; including wins in the swing states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio. As the polls closed and vote counts trickled in, each of the four key states and the Democratic strongholds of Wisconsin and Michigan turned red for Trump. Surprise over the outcome and narrow popular vote margins resulted from a lack of statistical literacy, according to AP Statistics teacher Allison Youndt. The actual support for a candidate ranged from several points below to several points above poll values, depending on the pollster’s margin of error. In the period leading up to the election, Clinton’s lead remained within the margin of error. Like Roeder, she is convinced that many Trump voters declined to answer pollsters’ calls or hid
Neil Goldenthal/The SPOKE
Indiana’s Two-Pence: Vice President-elect Mike Pence’s Deputy Chief of Staff-Comunications and Strategy Matt Lloyd discusses the hopes of Indiana citizens for the new presidency. Donald Trump and Mike Pence were elected into the White House on Nov. 8. their true feelings about the candidates, which skewed the polling numbers. Youndt advises students to reconsider their perceptions of polling post-election, noting that media �igures often misinterpret statistics. “You can never be 100 percent certain about anything,” Youndt said. “There’s always going to be error in the sampling. The bottom line: looked at these polls and determine if they’re reputable and look at the �ine print.” English teacher Tricia Ebarvia wants to encourage reconciliation among students who disagreed over the election, asking teachers to put personal politics aside. “The school is trying it to be a place where the more heated and the more antagonistic elements of the election are not seeping in,” Ebarvia said. We are working on “how to bridge the divide that is so obviously shown in the election results but also in our school community.” Anticipating the long-term consequences of 2016, Roeder hopes students continue to treat each other with mutual respect, regardless of political differences. “I didn’t want to step on any toes because some people were pretty upset about (the election),” Roeder said. “How I want (my liberal friends) to be respectful of my views, I try to be respectful of theirs.”
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