Over the course of his campaign, Donald Trump has tweeted and said many offensive things about women, and before that even sexually assaulted some. Not only women have been targeted by him; just about one week after his inauguration, Trump made an executive order to keep out all citizens from seven countries that are mainly made up of Muslims, including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. Though this order is now suspended, many people from these countries or those who practice Islam feel unsafe, even more so than before Trump was inaugurated. Adults are not the only ones who are feeling uneasy; teenagers know what is going on and have their own opinions and things to say.
Athra, a 14-year-old girl living in the United States, is one of these teens. She says that Trump “hasn’t really affected me, personally. I just try not to even think he’s our president, which I guess you could say is avoiding a problem. But when he decided to ban seven countries, including Iran, my home country, I was really upset because I have a lot of family there, including an uncle who was supposed to come over [to the U.S.]. My sister and I were really upset when we found out he might not be able to; most of our family doesn’t live in the U.S., so we really get our hopes up when they say they’ll come, and it’s really disappointing when they can’t.” Athra is not the only one feeling this way. Emma, another teen, also feels that she is “not yet really personally affected by him, but my great grandmother immigrated as a Jew from Poland because of the pogroms of Jews in her town. She had to leave to stay safe and survive and it is awful that people today, especially Syrian refugees, are facing the same awful things, and we won’t help them and allow them to be safe based on a prejudice that is completely unfair.”
On another note, Maddie, a 14-year-old, is worried about what Trump has said about women; “it frightens me that the man running our country has said to 14-year-old girls ‘in a couple years, I’ll be dating you.’ I shouldn’t have to be worried about being sexually assaulted by the president of our country”
One teen is concerned about the new Supreme Court appointee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, who they feel “is going to push for anti-abortion laws in the Supreme Court. While this does not affect me now, it may affect teens I know in the future because if they get pregnant they will not be able to have an abortion and they’ll have to make the decision whether or not to give the child up for adoption or raise them, and they cannot choose to have an abortion which I think would be unfair to them. Also, if their baby has a problem and it could die after it’s born or if it will hurt them, they should be given the choice whether or not to have an abortion.”
Adults do have many opinions, but they must not forget that teens do too and they want to express those opinions, especially around politics. Politics and Trump’s past and recent actions have been not only noticed but also but have affected many teens. Donald Trump has been a focal point in the media for the past year or so, and many teens have not missed that; instead, they want to take a stand against or for him.
