Humans of La Salle: Students React Strongly to Trump’s Win
November 9, 2016
In a stunning and unexpected win, Donald Trump became the nation’s president-elect on Tuesday night. Less than 24 hours later, we asked La Salle students for their reaction to this historic and controversial election. Here are their responses.
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Isabella Griffiths, sophomore
“America is in need of a strong leader that will be able to build our country and continue to value what our Founding Fathers stood for. Mr. Donald Trump may have his imperfections, as do all human beings, but I believe that he will be able to shift our country’s path in a positive direction. My hope is that America will remain one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
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Christian Gomez, junior
“Well, basically the thing is [that] as long as he does well, I don’t really care. I mean, everybody’s freaking out right now about how he got elected and [saying that] he’s trash, but so far there’s nothing against him that will make him a bad president, and he could do well, and if he does bad then we’ll learn from it.”
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Corwyn Bradeen, senior
“I didn’t like both candidates, but I was settling for Hillary because I didn’t agree with Trump’s stance on interacting with other people, so I feel pretty neutral about this election, because I didn’t really want any of them to win. I just hope that we can have peaceful relations with other countries.”
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Jack Arp, junior
“Well, honestly, I don’t think it was a great outcome… I didn’t like the candidates either way. I thought anyone who had any good traits was eliminated pretty early on in the primaries.”
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Jason Nasser-Marsh, sophomore
“So if our system was actually a democracy, without the electoral college, Clinton would have won. But, the way the electoral college works with all the delegates and electoral votes, Trump won, and it’s an unfair system. Also, I think it showed that uneducated white men rule more than we think they did, and all the progress we made as a nation is going to reverse now, so this is not a good sign for anyone.
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Katie Quines, senior
“I am very unhappy about it, and the problem isn’t that I’m upset that my candidate didn’t win, but more the fact that I think the major problem with this election is the fact that both candidates were so terrible that we were forced to chose the lesser of two evils. Both candidates are corrupt, and I’m disappointed in the fact that America decided to desert the fact that Donald Trump has dismissed basically all of human life, the idea that sexual assault is a joke at best, and [that] he had possibly committed crimes. [This] is a problem to me because the issue with this candidacy isn’t the fact that it’s Republican versus Democrat but it’s people who aren’t voting with a moral conscience.”
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Harry Nguyen, junior
“The Trump win was kind of unexpected, and a lot of people thought from the polls that Hillary was going to win, and nobody really, after all the scandals and stuff, [were] expecting it to come out like that, but at the very end all the people who really supported Trump just passively sat around until voting day. It all just came together and destroyed the polls.”
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Madeline Capps, freshman
“I don’t really know how he won because all of the other Republicans were against him too… kind of a surprise.”
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Matthew Werner, junior
“We have a democracy in the United States of America that our Founding Fathers set up 200 years ago, and if this is what the democracy shows then that’s what everyone should support and that’s why the vote turned out the way it did.”
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Brendan LeFranc, junior
“At first I was really angry that we as a country let this happen, but I realized I was more disappointed. It makes sense that after having our first African-American president who made a lot of change and progress at once, that I feel like a lot of people who voted for Trump just wanted to… I don’t know, gain some power back or something. And I know a lot of people hated Hillary. I didn’t really like her much myself, but… I’m just stunned.”
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Carolina Stahly-Dronkowski, sophomore
“I know there are a lot of people who think it’s a good thing, but I feel like it’ll make our country more unstable… just from him being elected, it’s caused a lot of problems.”
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Owen Tunstill, freshman
“It makes me concerned as an American and ashamed that we elected a racist president.”
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Karla Romero, junior
“I think that it’s going to cause a lot of hatred in the country towards people who are different or minorities. It’s going to [make it so that] people from the Ku Klux Klan feel a lot freer to do the things that they see as right. I feel like it’s going to be a hard time.”
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Alex Pereira, junior
“I’m afraid of how the country will end up. Both candidates have divided the country and will continue to. They’ve both divided minorities… Trump encouraged hate towards Muslims during a vulnerable time. These next years may be tough, but let’s hope Trump does a good job.”`
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Maren Sheahan, sophomore
“I respect everyone’s beliefs, but I’m worried for the people he’s spoken out against… I just hope that everyone is at peace and that he won’t mess things up too much.”
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What do you think about Donald Trump’s victory? Let us know in the comments below.
Anonymous • Nov 10, 2016 at 8:53 am
My biggest concern is Mr. Trump’s environmental policies. He has repeatedly claimed that climate change is “a hoax created by the Chinese” and promised to remove ALL funding for renewable energy research and climate change prevention. He also promises to increase offshore drilling, fracking, coal production, and other environmentally terrible policies. He even at one point said he would get rid of the environmental protection agency entirely.
Sunshine Huddleston • Nov 10, 2016 at 8:05 am
I honestly preferred Hillary this election. Congrats to Donald Trump for winning the election. However the only thing I’m really concerned about is his views of deporting everyone who came here illegally. Most people came here because they heard what our country has always stated, that we are the home of the freedom and brave. To send those people back to where they came shows we don’t even live like that. That that part in our own national anthem shouldn’t be there due to the fact that the person who comes may be sent back to the troubles of their own country.
Anonymous • Nov 9, 2016 at 10:32 pm
The main problem in this election is that people are constantly believing everything they hear which sometimes can be true, but sometimes can be false such as that Trump hates Muslims. People need to understand that his word is being twisted and what he is doing is trying to protect America. He wants to stop Muslims from coming in and out of the country because of the risk of terrorist attacks from ISIS and other organizations, which may seem terrible, but America has done more in humane things in situations like this back in World War 2 when they imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. What Trump is trying to do is to not allow terrorists to come into mainland America and carry out attacks such as the Paris attacks or the San Bernardino attacks. Now, I’m not saying it’s going to work, but America needs to adapt for possible threats in the future to protect the citizens. What I truly want for Trump to do is to unite America as one so we can solve these problems as one nation because at this moment, I see a split nation as Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Sam Gullo • Nov 9, 2016 at 9:20 pm
I understand that many people may feel a sense a loss from this election, but I feel that it’s important to clear some things up. Donald Trump didn’t specifically ask or aim for an endorsement from the KKK, he’s had no direct affiliation with the organization. Trump isn’t as much as a racist as many make him out to be: he has gone over and discussed the crime and problems in the inner cities and wants to try to improve the quality of life for all Americans. Lastly for those who believe that the electoral college is an unfair process in which we elect our president, there is a reason why our founding fathers created the system. Without the electoral college states weren’t given enough representation in elections and instead of simply using a popular vote. The states represent their people which is the reason they have their set amount of votes, and this way every person is more representative of what they believe in the election process. I hope everyone can find peace and acceptance with the result of this election, and I pray to God that the rights and freedoms that we are privileged with today won’t be taken away.
Secret Speaker • Nov 9, 2016 at 6:40 pm
I can see how some of you would not want an electoral college, but without the electoral college and just a popular vote the entire system would be messed up. If the election was solely based on popular vote then all the states with extremely high population like California, New York, and Florida would have all the power and states with relatively low population like Oregon, Kansas, and Montana would not have any say in anything because of their small population. So the way we have the election system right now is the best way because little people in little states can make way more of a difference.
Giliana Kaptur • Nov 9, 2016 at 5:59 pm
This election was very emotional and difficult in my opinion. All I hope now is that we look at the future. We need to stay together democrats, republicans, independent and ect. We need to take the higher road. I’m not sure how I feel about Trump winning, but I am scared for the lgbtq community. I have recently gotten to know great people from this community and Hilary losing was very hard for them. I pray and hope the best for them. I just hope the Trump does not make any incredibly dumb decisions. I want the lgbtq community to feel safe in their country. I want them to be okay with being who they are because they are all amazing people. I hope they don’t change because of Trump’s win
Liam McNassar • Nov 9, 2016 at 6:11 pm
Just so you know, you have nothing to worry about. The lgbtq community is going to be protected by Trump (he said so either last night or within the last week… Correct me on the date if I’m wrong).
Evans Brackenbrough • Nov 9, 2016 at 8:02 pm
Giliana, I think you bring up a very important point in that we, as a nation, now that the election is over, must cast aside political parties and work together toward the common good. In addition I believe that finding fault with the electoral college process, gloating about Trump’s victory, or complaining about the choice of candidates this year will not promote unity, but instead, create further dissension. The people picked Trump and I hope that he surrounds himself with intelligent people that are able to offset his obvious weaknesses. If he can accomplish this then he may be able to achieve his dream and “make America great again”.
Liam McNassar • Nov 9, 2016 at 5:56 pm
I want people to be able accept that this is who our system chose and this is who we are to respect. I would say the same about Hillary if she was elected president. I just hope that we can realize that Donald Trump is not a racist or a sexist. Sure he has said things that even my female friends that are Trump supporters say are bad, but there is a distinct difference between saying something than doing something.
Alex Boyd • Nov 9, 2016 at 9:53 pm
Donald Trump did say some bad things. Among those things were him saying that he has harassed women and really only views them as objects, or at least from what I saw. As for racism, a few years ago he was disgusted that an African American man was an accountant at one of his businesses. I can’t recall the exact quote, but it was along the lines of “I don’t want those people handling my money. The only people I want handling my money are the short ones who wear yarmulkes every day”, implying that he believes that blacks would only steal his money.
>> Editor’s note: The alleged statement that this comment says was made by Trump appears to be confirmed here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/20/25-people-places-and-things-donald-trump-has-denounced
Unknown • Nov 16, 2016 at 2:20 pm
Not only did he say horrible things he also did them and if you think we should respect a man who shows no respect for women or African Americans or Muslims or Latinos then you’ve got it all wrong. Donald Trump is not my president and he will never be. Love Trumps Hate.