The 2016 presidential campaign season has arguably been one of the most divisive times in American political history. The major political party candidates, Donald Trump(R) and Hillary Clinton(D), are considered the most unlikable presidential candidates that America has ever seen. With multiple scandals surrounding Clinton, and Trump’s perceived misogynistic and racist behavior, the public had to choose between the lesser of the two evils. Not many people trusted Hillary because their perception of her lying and sneaky behavior involving thousands of classified emails she had on a private sever. However, people also had a very good reason to despise Trump, as he is known to be very “misogynistic” and “racist.” In the wake of the news clip displaying Mr. Trump speaking provocatively about women, along with his proposed Muslim ban, makes him not the most likable character either. This was a brutal campaign, filled with surprises around every corner. This lived up on November 8th when the overwhelming majority of essentially the entire media, and the statistical polling industries, among others, utterly failed. Now with the results of the election in, Donald Trump has won the presidency, becoming the first person to do so without any prior experience in politics or government. Students at Walt Whitman High School have widely varying perspectives on this outcome.
Sophomore Andrew Borges believed that we made a “detrimental decision on Election Night, as we chose a president that would allow the further degradation of the climate, cause an economic malaise, and get us in unnecessary wars.”
On the contrary, sophomore Kevin McKenna thinks that the results were “extremely close” and that the nation “made the right decision.” These two contradictory opinions show how divided people’s views are on this issue, including high school children.
Another sophomore, Ashar Farooq, thinks that one of the most important election of perhaps our lives came to a “thundering and unexpected end in every possible way, therefore resulting in a divided nation attempting to recover from an almost tumultuous campaign season.” While many people thought that Hillary would pull through as the victor, Trump turned out on top. Instead of uniting the nation, it seems like this has only drawn us farther and farther apart, as many people are refusing to accept the fact that Trump won, and some even threatening to leave the country.