By Dair McNinch, Community Editor
In an age some are saying possesses the biggest political divide we’ve ever faced as a nation and the hardest time to have a conversation with someone about it, I decided to do just that to understand why.
For more than two years now, Washington, the media and the general public have been an absolute battlefield. And the argument for what’s right for this country has been at the heart of that fight, throwing my generation, Generation Z, right into the middle of it.
That same generation has been labeled as possibly the most politically active one yet, and although we might not yet be reaching maturity, we sure are reaching voting age.
Considering Trump won the popular vote in NC, his supporters were not hard to find. And just like the president they support, they were not afraid to share how they felt.
“I think he’s a good president because he does whatever he thinks is right for the betterment of this country,” senior Max Hawkins said.
And that certainly is true. Whether it’s trade, immigration, foreign policy or domestic economics, Trump has done what he thinks is the best thing to do. He isn’t afraid to be vocal about his opinion, either.
“He’s not afraid to take charge of something,” senior Maddie Beaver said.
Trump often praises himself for how much he takes charge, such as by signing 55 executive orders and 94 bills into law in his first year in office alone. Where the truth becomes debatable, however, is in what he says his actions have done for the country.
“I remember Obama saying how our GDP wouldn’t raise anymore, Trump comes in and it’s immediately better,” junior Dustin Woickelman said.
While Trump has taken credit for the rise in the GDP and the consequential decrease in unemployment, it’s not that simple. Many Trump supporters share “Trump’s” economic improvements as one of their main reasons for supporting him, while the truth of the matter is that the United States has been following five- to seven-year economic cycles, in which the GDP rises and falls over and over again.
It’s been this way since the Great Depression, and presidents have historically taken credit for the good times and ignored the bad times, even though the only way the executive branch can make noticeable impacts is doing something like getting us into a war or inciting catastrophic changes in trade. This most recent economic rise started in 2014, two years before Trump was elected.
But Trump supporters love to latch onto this, and even use it as an excuse to make some of the things he’s been called out for saying seem OK in perspective.
“I support him mostly because of what he’s doing for our economy,” Hawkins said. “Obama said the GDP was never going to reach above 3 (percent) again and Trump said he’d try and boost everything and make us make more money. I wouldn’t know what it was exactly he did because I’m not that attuned to it as much as his other policies.”
The sad part is that that’s what Trump feeds off of, telling the public something and hoping that a lack of proper information on certain things will get his foot in the door for their support.
“He doesn’t hide around the facts, doesn’t jump around it, he says what’s going on and I admire him for that,” Woickelman said.
Debatable.
A fact check run by the Washington Post showed that during the first 558 days of his presidency, Trump made 4,229 statements that were completely false, with an overall average of 7.6 per day. Even with this information, some supporters of his don’t seem to mind.
“From a president standpoint I think he’s trustworthy, but there are definitely some times he goes back on his word or twists it around,” Beaver said. “For the most part I feel like you kinda have to trust him in a way, because he is your president. We’re kinda in his hands and he’s making the big decisions so we have to have some trust in him.”
Whether it’s not understanding the full picture, receiving misleading information, or just not wanting to consider anything different, there are many explanations as to why some people are so quick to back our current commander-in-chief.
Trump’s war on trade is another perfect example of something supported by millions because of one of these reasons.
“His trade war is a good choice because I’d like to see more things that say made in the USA,” junior Baxter Strydom said. “I think if we’re keeping money in America it’s a good thing.”
Just like domestic economic change, trade with other nations is another political topic that’s a lot more complicated than Trump and his supporters describe it.
“I think he’s making it so America is sought after rather than seeking others,” Woickelman said. “I’d like to see other nations look at us other than a piggy bank.”
While putting a tariff on steel from China to increase dependency on the steel production here might be good for the steel industry, it ends up hurting all the businesses that rely on cheaper steel from China, as well as raising prices for consumers. Despite how great of a businessman people take Trump to be, aggressive decisions like these could end up leaving devastating impacts on the economy in America and global trade entirely.
It’s not just the economy that Trump could have a lasting impact on if he isn’t kept in check. Relations with some of our closest allies, quality of the environment, and the rest of the world’s view on America could all be damaged beyond repair if he stays on track with what he’s doing now.
What my pleading hope is to my generation, though, is to make sure Trump himself or anyone like him doesn’t get anywhere near the White House ever again. And all it will take is just a little effort, just a little bit of time to put in to get properly informed.
For now, what’s done is done, and as a nation we have no choice but to ride out what we did to ourselves until 2020.
Because as Beaver put it, “We haven’t really seen how much he can do yet because he’s only been in office for a year or so, and I feel like there’s definitely more to come.”
That’s what terrifies me.
Senior Dair McNinch can be reached at [email protected].
