Written and Illustrated By Yasmin Katz
As many of you may know, the U.S. is having (has had) a presidential election. I was wondering how Toronto teenagers feel about the election. What are important issues to them? Which candidates do they like? So I surveyed and interviewed some Toronto teens to see how they felt about the current political climate in the U.S.
When asked how they would hypothetically vote, the majority said they would vote for Joe Biden. This isn’t because Toronto teens particularly like Biden, they just hate Trump. When asked about Donald Trump, Harbord’s very own, Ziena El-Gewely stated, “Well, I think that he’s incredibly racist and he provokes white supremacy, he’s incredibly misogynistic, and one of the worst presidents America has ever seen.” When asked about Biden, she stated, “If I had the right to vote I would vote for him but he’s not my ideal candidate. He has said a lot of questionable things to say the least. In general, I think he’s a lot better of a candidate. I think he’s more experienced and a better fit than Donald Trump, especially [because] a vote for anybody else but Biden is a vote for Trump.”
When asked about Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, many teens were very unimpressed saying that it was abysmal and incompetent. One student said, “It’s very clear he doesn’t know what he’s doing.” Other students weren’t very pleased about how he ‘brought football back’ arguing that he can bring football back but he can’t bring back 200,000 Americans.
I asked what are some important issues to the students of Toronto. Many common issues they were passionate about were LGBTQ+ rights, feminism, Black Lives Matter and climate change. Many feel that President Trump has failed to take care of these issues and instead added to the fire. Some feel that Biden is only a tad bit better than Donald Trump while others think Biden is a great choice due to his thoughts on climate change.
Overall teenagers in Toronto do care about this election and are hoping that the U.S. will make the right decision when choosing the next president.The question is; do we know the results today?
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