Exeter Responds to Presidential Debates

By Kaylee Chen, Tina Huang and Anya Tang

The presidential debate on Sep. 29 and vice presidential debate last Wednesday sparked debate throughout the community as students 18 and older prepare to vote absentee or in-person. 

The Academy’s Democratic Club held live screenings of both debates. Students watched President Donald Trump and former Vice-President Joe Biden on a projection set up in North Side’s Quad, a set-up repeated the following week. News of the screening came from a Facebook Messenger group chat, which kept attendee numbers low. 

Attendee and senior Phil Horrigan noted the nature of student comments during the screening. 

“Our reactions came in a few different varieties: cringing at Biden being a terrible speaker—although, for someone with a stutter, he is really good—cheering on Chris Wallace for fighting with Trump, and expressing our disbelief at how blindingly incompetent the President of the United States is,” Horrigan said. “I think being in-person amplified these reactions.”

Some dorms also held screenings. Upper Coco Lipe watched the Presidential Debate with her dorm-mates in the Wheelwright common room. “We had a bit of political analysis afterwards, but everyone was incredibly frustrated the entire time because it was hard to tell what either of them were saying,” Lipe said. “Trump was interrupting significantly more than Biden.”

Senior Meili Hart thought the debate did not serve a clear purpose. 

“We got no meaningful clarification on the candidates’ respective positions—in part due to Chris Wallace’s performance as a moderator,” Hart said.

Other students, though, mentioned how the debate changed their views on the candidates. “I was more convinced to support [Biden] because of this debate,” Democratic Club co-head and upper Grace Valashinas said. “This was in part because of [Biden’s] continual addresses to the American people—looking straight into the camera and appealing to viewers was a great strategy—but also because of Trump’s abhorrent performance.”

Some students found parts of the debate difficult to watch. “As a queer person of color, when I saw Trump refusing to condemn white supremacists, telling them to ‘step back and stand by,’ I felt gutted,” prep Avery Doe* said.

Other students were less critical of President Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacists. Prep Juno Cowans found Trump’s statements on white supremacy “disappointing, but understandable” because “politics is a vicious game.” Cowans noted it was “unfortunate because [white supremacy] is definitely wrong.”

“An important issue that came to light is the riots and lawlessness in our cities. I feel [Trump] was able to represent that he was going to fight this lawlessness. I don’t think that the way he’s going to do that is the right way, but it’s important to me that it gets done.” Cowans added. “I would vote for him over [Biden], who did not specify a good plan about that.”

Some classes have also been discussing the debate. In her existentialism class, upper Kitty Coats and her classmates talked about the limitations of sharing political views during a term online. “We used to spend some time talking about political issues as we settled into class, but we don’t really do that on Zoom,” Coats said. “It’s a very emotional election for many, and [my classmates] said they were mostly talking about it with their friends instead of people in their classes. The school should be more active in communicating with us about the election so we are not thinking about it alone.”

For the Vice Presidential Debate, upper Zander Galli believed Vice President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris were more understandable than their running mates. “Policies and stances were much clearer than in the previous debate,” Galli said. “We saw Pence call himself ‘unapologetically pro-life.’”

“I don’t think there’s much of a debate among this community whether the current administration should serve for another four years,” Galli continued. “There’s less of a discussion about the core of the debate and more of a focus on the ridiculous idiosyncrasies, such as the fly that sat on Pence’s head.”

Prep Matilda Damon talked about how both debates could negatively impact America’s youth, recalling a question posed during the Vice Presidential Debate. “An eighth-grader asked something along the lines of, ‘If our leaders are fighting, what is that supposed to represent?’ Seeing people running for President yelling, bickering and calling each other stupid is really hard, especially for the youth.”

Hart noted that debates offer an opportunity to engage in meaningful political discourse. “There’s a clear liberal majority on campus,” Hart said. “When engaging in these difficult discussions, we should do so with respect and humility, and we should aim to understand other points of view. I do think that some conservative voices are afraid to speak their minds. We should encourage them to speak up and engage in honest civil discourse.”

Horrigan, however, took a different stance. “I don’t feel bad for conservatives who think that a liberal institution is silencing them,” Horrigan said. “If your ideology is based on hatred or the oppression of others, then you should feel worried about sharing those ideologies with others because that ideology lacks the empathetic basis required for civilized discourse.”

*Name change made to preserve anonymity.