Growing Up Trumped: 9 Portland, Ore HS students talk about coming of age in the MAGA era

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Posted on 11/29/2024 6:16:54 PM PST by nwrep

On Nov. 6, the day after a national election that sent Donald Trump back to the White House, Elijah Graham and Owen King, who attend high schools on opposite sides of the Willamette River, were each greeted by the same Turkish proverb posted on their classroom bulletin boards: “When a clown moves into a palace, the clown does not become a king—the palace becomes a circus.”

A similar mood met students across Portland that Wednesday morning. “The air was pretty intense,” says Camila Sahagun, a sophomore at Lincoln High School. Connor Jacobsen, a senior at Benson Polytechnic High School, remembers seeing one of his teachers crying.

For these students, the MAGA movement is as basic a fact of life as doomscrolling on TikTok or streaming Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please.” We’ve long been told to look to the next generation for a way to move forward into a better future. But unlike Trump’s victory in 2016—or his refusal to accept his loss in 2020—an air of resignation has greeted this result, especially since early polling suggests Generation Z’s hostility to the MAGA movement is softening. Maybe…this is the future?

We figured we’d better ask. That’s why WW gathered nine Portland high school students last Thursday at Oui Presse on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard for a roundtable discussion of how they feel about where the nation is heading.

All nine students said they preferred Vice President Kamala Harris to Trump, though only Jacobsen was old enough to vote in this election.

We tried to find a Trump-voting teen for the roundtable, but it proved difficult: The Oregon chapter of High School Republicans said it didn’t have a single member in Portland Public Schools.

Perhaps Portland’s youth are in a bubble. (A Tufts University survey shows 46% of young voters cast their ballots for Trump. In 2020, that figure was 36%.) But they didn’t seem especially eager to engage in 2016-style protests, either. Jacobsen led one of the few student walkouts in Portland Public Schools to protest Trump but said Harris’ policies on Gaza had left him uninspired. A couple of students said their parents, fearing for their teens’ safety, wouldn’t allow them to attend protest marches.

WW: In one word, how are you feeling about America?

Sage Coltman: Scared.

Kelan Egusa: Chaotic.

Elijah Eisenberg: Complex.

Elijah Graham: Worried.

Connor Jacobsen: Trapped.

Owen King: Dread.

Signe Miner: Anxious.

Camila Sahagun: Scared.

McKenzie Vo: Circus.

Where do you get your news?

Sage Coltman: Social media and word of mouth.

Kelan Egusa: Social media.

Elijah Eisenberg: Advocacy organizations and the Google homepage.

Elijah Graham: RapTV.

Connor Jacobsen: The Daily Show.

Owen King: Ground News.

Signe Miner: Newspapers. I like The Guardian and The New Yorker.

Camila Sahagun: Social media.

McKenzie Vo: AP News, The New York Times and social media.

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1 posted on 11/29/2024 6:16:54 PM PST by nwrep

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