OPINION
Four writers from The Paper came together to write about what the 2024 presidential election means for them. Here’s what they have to say:
Elizabeth Reich, Editor-in-Chief, 21, from New York
In the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club, Anthony Michael Hall’s character says that the only reason he has a fake ID is to vote. As I grew up, I fully thought I would do the same. I became politically aware at a young age, around thirteen years old. Donald Trump had been elected President, and my parents would talk about what that meant for the country. They were afraid and beside themselves. I learned very quickly about modern American politics, and my interest in history would only deepen my understanding.
In high school, the more I learned in class and on my own made me feel disillusioned with the American system. So many injustices and, frankly, evils are ingrained into the fabric of this nation. Obviously, that isn’t only an American problem, but how is voting for one of two parties supposed to enact any real change?
This election, I am struggling to deal with two evils and my own political understanding. On one hand, voting is a precious right that is actively under attack from the right. For example, Reuters reported that Republicans are attempting to block some overseas ballots from being counted - notably those of expats who tend to lean Democrat. So many others in this country cannot vote but they are still at the mercy of those who can. On some level, I feel I must vote for the good of those who can’t. But on the other hand, I feel that voting is a tool to quell and distract the masses so that real progress is never made, a tool to divide rather than unite, so true solidarity is never achieved against bourgeois interests.
And don’t even get me started on these “candidates.” Donald Trump, a fascist complete with a cult of personality who just this morning (October 14th) announced he would be in favor of deploying the National Guard to target leftists. I was never going to vote for him in a million years. This is all I will say about the man.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are a more complicated evil. It’s right to oppose an American fascist like Trump. But to literally support a genocide in another country? That makes you evil. Biden and Harris are one entity. Harris’ policy is to maintain Biden’s. One of Biden’s policies is to arm and support Israel even as the war spills out to the wider Middle East and threatens to become completely uncontrollable. Billions of dollars are spent to kill innocent civilians in Palestine and Lebanon while the victims of Hurricanes Helene and Milton are left to pick up the pieces with FEMA’s limited funds and resources. How could I, in good conscience, vote for the Democratic party when this is how they run things?
I’m stuck. But I also realize that it doesn’t really matter as a New York resident. The state will turn blue with or without my vote. So I will focus on local issues and work on national ones from the ground up. For most of us, the local issues are what impact our lives tangibly. National issues can be changed through local action, at least for starters.
As a student journalist, I feel it is my duty to learn all I can this election and share it with the public. As a college student, I think not just about my future in the United States but also about the futures of young people across the globe. I think about our health, happiness, and safety from death and destruction. I think about solidarity to fight the industrialist and imperialist evils of our time. I think that a vote for neither Trump nor Harris is the answer. Being armed with knowledge of the system, your voice and action, and humanity is.
Roxanna Cardenas Colmenares, Editor, 29, from Venezuela
Election year is difficult for me; it has always been.
I come from a nation that upholds fake democracy, a place known for its dictatorship but that would never officially claim it as such. Citizens mock elections where results are manipulated by the same political party that has been in power for over twenty years and the same “president” that has ruled for eleven of those. No matter who you vote for, the same political party will be “elected.” As the country crumbles and perishes – an inevitable outcome of perpetuating power – the same government and its fanatics rule the country with violence and hate. Over there, I could vote, but my opinions and hopes were irrelevant. I eventually ran away from that hopelessness, jumping on a plane and emigrating to New York City. I’ve been here seven years, and the elections make me feel like an outsider or, as immigration papers describe me, an “alien” in this land I now call home. Now I can’t vote, so my opinions and hopes are irrelevant – I wonder what is more hopeless.
I moved to this country during Donald Trump’s last administration. During my first three years here, I struggled with near-traumatizing immigration policies. My lawyer always reminded me that I had to be patient because the current government had tightened and slowed down processes. I would listen to Trump's speeches about creating laws against Latinx people, women, queer people, and immigrants, all communities I belong to. And I thought, “If the person in charge of this country hates all that is inherently me, am I even allowed here?” The question hadn’t popped in my head for years but when the Republican party announced his candidacy for this year’s elections, the doubts returned.
However, Trump’s campaign is not the only scary thing about this year’s elections. After the first unsteady years living here, Election Day came and Joe Biden became the President of the United States in 2021. By then, I had learned more about how democracy works in this country yet I kept myself detached from the politics and focused on surviving the immigrant life. Still, I noticed things; the policies created once COVID-19 came around, the perpetual wars on distant lands, and the indifference to stopping the violation of human rights. I finally understood why so many American citizens around me didn’t feel empowered to vote – what is left and right but mirror images of each other? Biden’s candidacy didn’t feel right either, but then Kamala Harris became the official candidate for the Democratic Party, and things felt ever so slightly different. I thought, “The first woman president in this country? Will I witness such an event? Would it even matter?”
My skin itches knowing I have no power or role in whatever happens this November. I am a bystander waiting for the roof to fall, unable to join those trying to fix it or move away when it collapses. While I watch it slowly crumble, I continue building a life under its shelter. I go to college and work full-time while planning for an uncertain future that ultimately other people will determine for me. During these times, I think about the accessibility to reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrants facing deportation, and genocide; I think about my birth country and the reasons why I left it; I think about my life here and how grateful I am for it; I also think about my fears. I am scared of Trump telling the truth and of Harris telling lies. Who will win and what does that future look like?
Inevitably, I feel helpless. I don’t know the best thing to do. Should I remove myself from the politics that will eventually affect me, but that I have no say on? But I live here, shouldn’t I get myself involved? Still, my voice feels soundless. Yet perhaps, it does have some tune to it. I’ve realized that although I don’t have direct power over this year’s elections, I have my words. I don’t have the right to vote, but I have the right to debate, to argue, to advocate for the country that is my home. It might be wishful thinking, but if I can make at least one person look up at the shaky ceiling above us, they might want to fix it and hold it together until I can join them. That has to be worth something.
Gershon Salzberg, Writer, 25
It seems cruel to me that I am set to graduate college a mere month or so after the 2024 presidential election. Beyond Gen Z, being a college student is one of the largest parts of my identity. Having turned 18 only a few weeks after the election in 2016, my journey as a voter during these tumultuous political times has been shaped in no small part by these two major facets of my identity.
It was on the college campus where I became a better-educated voter. Friends and classmates taught me about the policies that mattered both nationally and locally. It was the time I spent as part of The Paper that helped strengthen my conviction to hold our elected officials accountable for what they say and do.
It is precisely because of this political education I’ve received in college that I am frustrated when I hear people my age say that they don’t care or know anything about politics. There are benefits of interacting daily with people who have different perspectives than you, whether they are classmates or just someone you have met on campus. College can be one of the best times of a person’s life, if not the best time, for them to learn firsthand how politics affects the lives of people from different walks of life.
And perhaps more importantly, in a general sense, it has never been easier to become politically educated thanks to the Internet. From local grassroots organizations lobbying about a specific issue to help improve their neighborhood all the way to Representative Jeff Jackson serving the 14th District of North Carolina while making Tiktok videos on what Congress is currently up to, there are so many resources available.
To sit back and say, “Well politics doesn't affect my life, I’m going to focus on my classes” is a mistake. Political decisions made by our elected officials shape our everyday life and to ignore that is a decision that is a high level of willful ignorance.
In an election cycle where until Joe Biden dropped out both candidates were old enough to be born in a world where the Frisbee hadn’t been invented yet, young people especially need to vote. If we, as college students, don't go out in droves and make our voices heard at the polls, the political establishment can ignore our generation. And why shouldn’t they? At the beginning of the current Congress’s term, the average age of Representatives was 58.4 years old, while Senators had an average age of 64.3 years. Whatever decisions they make won’t affect themselves decades into the future while our generation will live with those decisions for the rest of our lives. Don’t give them a reason to ignore you.
To all the current college-age people, go out. Vote, lobby, and make our voices heard. After all, we don’t have one foot in the grave. Let us collectively work for a future where anyone going to the grave only does so after a long happy life.
Queen Carrasco, Writer, 19
My immigrant parents never outwardly said that it was important to vote, but their actions showed it. I have vague memories of my brother and I holding our father’s hand while standing in line to vote for Obama’s first term. For some reason, our voting spot had been changed from the local school to one more than twenty minutes away. When asking my dad what happened years later, he first recalled that it was incredibly cold. He had been standing in line and a woman mistakenly told him that he could vote in the senior citizen line because he had two small children in his arms. The police officers there didn’t take this mistake lightly and began surrounding us. Yet, my dad was determined to cast his vote and stayed.
For a time, my mum couldn’t vote. Yet, she too demonstrated that it was important to be knowledgeable about the news and politics, both local and national. From 5 to 7 p.m., we watched ABC News and then PBS. My brother and I had to be quiet, drink our tea, eat our dinner, and pay attention to what we saw, as we would be asked about it later. As we grew older, it became a ritual to turn on the news as soon as we got home. With these things in mind, I always thought voting was powerful. I remember the silence in New York City after Trump was elected. The city stood still that day and my middle-school self thought, if only I could vote. I remember registering to vote at City College and excitedly thinking, now I can vote! Currently, I think I don’t want to vote.
As citizens, not just of the United States but of the world, we have seen what Donald Trump has done, his policies, and the detrimental results of that. Racism and xenophobia have always been present in this country, but it feels as if they rose massively under his presidency. While I definitely do not want those things “back,” as a black woman, those were always realities for me. I live in a world where I know people hate me for existing.
Identity politics do not sway me either; voting for the lesser evil Kamala Harris is still a vote for evil. The first Black and South Asian woman to run for office, Harris’s politics aren’t the “miracle” needed here. It is under the Biden-Harris administration that the genocide in Palestine has taken place; it is this administration that has sent bombs and weapons to its “ally” Israel. Under a Harris presidency, it is surely to continue. Descending from generations of oppressed ancestors, who am I to not stand in solidarity with not just Palestinians, but those in Congo, Sudan, Haiti, etc? Who am I to sit at home and think that voting for Harris can benefit us when the truth of the matter is what we need is a revolution?
I’m not here to sway anyone as to whether or not they should vote. I do know, however, that in identifying as a leftist, I have to draw the line somewhere. My former belief and “faith” in our system barely exist. I have to find faith in the community bringing about the necessary change. For so long in America, we have been taught that to vote is to be a part of democracy. This year, I am of the idea that abstaining from doing so does the same thing.
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