The Piedmont Highlander

The Student News Site of Piedmont High School

The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

Election ignites debate as primary season progresses

Election ignites debate as primary season progresses

Screen Shot 2016-03-28 at 2.46.03 PM

Every day brings one more hot-button issue, two more fundraising requests from my candidate and three more political rants on my Facebook feed. If the election is a spark, the fire is spreading.

“The election is really gaining momentum [around PHS],” civics teacher David Keller said. “I’m getting emails from students with YouTube clips and quotes and historical comparisons.”

There’s about a fairly even split between students who care about the election and students who do not, sophomore TH Williamson said. Personally, he is extremely interested in government and politics.I’ve joked about becoming the guy from “The Breakfast Club” who has the fake ID to go vote.”

Senior Sarah Stuetz said she hears people talking about current issues, but she thinks only select groups of students are invested in the election.

“In my AP Euro class, usually [my friends and I] will talk about the election instead of doing anything else,” senior Chloë Combes said.

Combes and her friends recently ordered matching Hillary Clinton hair scrunchies.

While Williamson said that his teachers often refer to the election or make jokes about it, junior Victoria Hou said her teachers try to stay away from the election because it is a touchy topic.

Social studies teacher Mark Cowherd mentions the election most frequently in APUSH.

“I want to encourage people to follow the political process,” he said.

In his civics class, Keller usually focuses on the political drama of the election because issues are harder to teach in an unbiased way.

On the Issues

3/4 of the political articles written during a two week period qualify as “horse race stories,” documenting political winners rather than policy discussions, according to Margaret Sullivan’s analysis of New York Times coverage.

The issues that are pertinent to the election are not ones that people in the Bay Area tend to care about, Keller said, and he thinks students are more interested in drama than the issues.

67 percent of respondents said that the presidential election usually reflects issues that are important to them.

Delegate Tracker

47 percent of  seniors  plan to vote for Sanders or would vote for him if they were old enough to do so, according a survey taken by 79 seniors during civics class on March 14.

“There’s a lot of people who are jumping on the Bernie bandwagon,” Combes said. “It’s cool to vote for Bernie because he’s from Vermont and he yells a lot.”

Freshman Carson Singer said that Bernie Sander’s promises to make public colleges tuition-free has persuaded many high schoolers to support his campaign.

“I hear people yelling really aggressively about Bernie Sanders [around school],” Stuetz said.

Piedmont’s zip code, 94611, is the fourth most pro-Sanders zip code in the nation, according to Crowdpac.oorg, which calculates Sander’s support by comparing hisfundraising success to that of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Senior Meredith Aebi said she plans to vote for Sanders because she appreciates seeing someone run who is genuinely a good person.

“I like his stance that we need to protect the environment more,” she said. “And there are big issues with wealth distribution and he could help fix them.”

23 percent of respondents plan to vote for Clinton or would if they were eligible, and 22 percent have not yet decided on a candidate.

Stuetz, who is “definitely a Democrat” has not yet decided between Clinton and Sanders and wants to learn more about their stances before choosing who to vote for in June.

“A lot of people around here are really supportive of Bernie Sanders and Democrats and Hillary when I really am different,” Singer said. “I don’t like those two.”

percent of survey respondents plan to vote for a Republican. Three of 79 would vote for John Kasich and one would vote for Marco Rubio, who dropped out after the survey. Zero responded that they would vote for Trump or Cruz, the two frontrunners in the Republican race.

Room for Debate

While some people share his opinions, Singer said that he tends to get into arguments because he has lots of liberal friends. “You get called stupid a lot, someone will definitely cuss at you,” he said. “They say, ‘Why are you a racist, why do you support Trump?’”

Williamson’s friends tend to be Sanders fans, but he has some that are conservative and has fun talking about how they differ, he said. He likes learning about opposing viewpoints because it helps him either solidify or adjust his opinions.

Keller said he tries to avoid sharing his opinions during class because it can make students uncomfortable.

“I’m always, in the back of my head, worried about the conservative students because it is so one-sided [towards liberals],” Keller said. “I think that’s sad because when the other side of the story isn’t told, you literally can’t get the full picture.”

Junior Sara Zukerman said most people in Piedmont tend to agree on politics and that disagreements can “cause some weirdness” between friends.

Because her knowledge comes from her parents, Zukerman assumes most teenagers go off of their parents’ political ideas, although she said this is not necessarily true of all students.

“I feel like if I’m not super informed, I shouldn’t be expressing that many opinions,” Zukerman said.

Senior Jenny Hosler recently deleted the Facebook application from her phone because all the political arguments made her “too sad.”

“I don’t feel like anyone bullies me for what I believe in, but I don’t feel like there are many people who are open to hearing new points of view,” Hosler said. “It’s funny because liberals tend to talk about a safe space. But for me, it doesn’t feel like a safe space for politics.”

135 students will be eligible to vote in the California primary on June 7.

Donate to The Piedmont Highlander

Your donation will support the student journalists of Piedmont High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

More to Discover
Donate to The Piedmont Highlander