How has this Election Affected Students?

by Ava Salado

Given the current times, does this 2020 election affect non-voting age students? More specifically, how has this election affected these youth? Could someone under 18 years old even really care about these things, let alone be affected by it? I interviewed a 16-year-old, named Zephyr Depew, to see what she thinks in hopes of answering these questions.

Depew describes the election as being nerve-racking but reports no unhappiness within her family. One of the biggest questions is if students really care about the election. When asked this, she replied with “I do care but sadly I can’t vote because I’m underage so I care about it a decent amount but I can’t care about it as much as some adults.” When I asked her if her opinion has been swayed by her family members opinion, Depew replied with “A little bit, because of me being raised with people that have this opinion, but I feel I would end up voting for the Democratic party even if I was raised in a Republican household.” Most have seen every Prop XYZ commercial imaginable so it is understandable when Depew answered the question if any commercial or ads have affected her opinion, Depew answered by talking about candidates ad videos. She said “It gives me a bit of a chuckle that it looks like a 12-year-old Fortnite thumbnail, but it hasn’t swayed me to a different side.”

The internet is a place with lots of information, especially every 4 years when the election holiday season comes around. No, we do not get gifted with holiday cheer, but instead with a lot of debates and opinions. Most people get all of their political information from the internet. We wanted to see if the students that are interested in the election get most of their information and opinion from the internet. Depew stated “not really because the part of the internet that I’m on are people that share my opinion, so I haven’t seen any videos that have swapped my opinion around.” If you did not have the internet and just word of mouth and the news, do you think that your political view would be different? Depew’s response was “Maybe, but also with the fact of where I live in California, so close to San Francisco, it’s most likely that I would still have the same opinions of the more democratic leaning side even without the internet.” Now we get to the last question which was, did the prior election leave you with any feelings or opinions different than this year’s election? Depew answers with “No, my opinion is the same, the prior election was not as stressful because I was younger but I still like…so I wasn’t thinking about it as much but I’m about in the same spot that I was last time except a little more pessimistic about the world.”