2016 Presidential Elections Incite Political Excitement
Primary elections for the presidential race have had a noticeable effect on campus this past school year, shifting the political landscape and encouraging student involvement in politics.
Republican candidate Donald Trump visited Exeter on Thursday, Feb. 4. The following day, Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders held a meeting at the Exeter Town Hall. While Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton did not speak at an organized rally, Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton have visited and campaigned at Exeter before. Former Republican candidates Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich also visited Exeter at the beginning of 2016 before dropping out of the race later in the year.
Although most teachers did not actively encourage their students to attend the rallies, some students got permission to miss class to attend midday events such as Trump’s rally. Three of English instructor Mercy Carbonell’s senior elective classes asked Carbonell if they could miss class during the block that overlapped with Trump’s visit. “It is a fairly rare moment to have a presidential candidate come through your school town,” Carbonell said.
“It was great to see students so excited about being involved in the process for the first time.”
Despite a long line, Carbonell noticed that several students managed to enter Town Hall to watch Trump’s campaign rally. She stood on the other side of the street with members of the community who were protesting against Trump. However, she still believed that attending the campaigns “could be beneficial” for some students. She contrasted the learning experiences of participating in a class discussion and witnessing discourse through political campaigns. “I suppose anything is a learning moment if there is reflection…” she said. “Usually students speak in distanced ways, in intellectual ways. And then we stand at a rally possibly to support, perhaps merely to witness, maybe to protest the spectacle that is Donald Trump and the hideous racism within his campaign.”
According to history instructor Michael Golay, because the primary exists only once every four years, it was “great [that] students got involved.” While students saw a variety of different candidates, he said that choice didn’t necessarily matter since it was “enough just being part of the drama” of an election. However, while the visiting candidates helped circulate more discussion on politics, Golay believes more attention could have been directed to the primaries themselves.
“Looking back, I suppose I wish we’d done more as a school to focus on the primary. But everyone got caught up in the Fred Grandy issue, and that distracted us,” he said. Golay noted that a few of his students skipped classes to go to Bernie Sanders’ rally.
Science instructor Townley Chisholm believed that the primaries had only a slight effect on the school by means of “depressing the adults” and giving students the opportunity to skip class to witness the “Donald Trump circus.” However, he noted that politically interested students had numerous chances to see and hear other candidates. “We are fortunate in [New Hampshire] to have all the candidates spend a huge amount of time in the state and doubly so for Republicans since every Republican candidate is obliged to make a pilgrimage to the birthplace of the party here in Exeter,” Chisholm said.
Upper Bonnie LaBonté said that politics have played a positive role on campus because the topic “gets [the community] talking and [keeps] students informed.” However, she acknowledged a “mob mentality” on campus in regards to personal beliefs.
“The downside of politicizing our campus is [that] we become too firm in our beliefs and sometimes forgot to listen to others—the biggest part of political discussion is understanding where other people’s ideology comes from,” LaBonté said.
Similarly, senior Peter Luff described political discourse in a positive light as a way “for students to exercise their reasoning and argument skills which they have honed through Harkness discussions.”
In addition to the conversations surrounding presidential candidates, concerns about campus attitude toward students with less popular political views were shared on a student-run anonymous Facebook page called Exeter Confesses. Although many discussions were begun Facebook, students also expressed their opinions in person through groups such as Republican Club.
As a co-head, Luff said that Republican Club has been “crucial to maintaining open political debate” at the Academy. “People have become much more aware of the myriad ways in which conservatives have been oppressed at Exeter during the last year, thanks to the work of some dedicated seniors and uppers,” he said.
Taylor further noted the effect of the elections on student participation in politics after he perceived an increase in action. “[The primaries] really elevated the level of student involvement in politics in ways that we haven't seen in years before,” he said. Taylor was appreciative of the uptick in political advocacy, saying “it was great to see students so excited about being involved in the process for the first time.”
The political stage outside of campus was also reflected in the on-campus election for Student Council (StuCo) positions. Taylor saw a parallel between the rise of non-establishments candidates such as Trump and Sanders and the success in the StuCo elections of candidates who ran on platforms of council reform.
“On a national level, we have people like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders getting lots of support, and even on campus, we had Matthew Robbins and Hojoon Kim, two candidates that sought to radically change the system and won the StuCo election,” he said.
Taylor was appreciative of the enthusiasm created by the primaries. Since he believes that Exonians are “motivated, articulate and active people,” he was unsurprised by their involvement. Nevertheless he felt that the primaries had a positive impact. “It was great to see students so excited about being involved in the process for the first time,” he said.