Academics

Po­lit­i­cal Paws

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Are to­day’s col­lege kids taught to think for them­selves? Or are to­day’s col­lege kids taught to fol­low the leader when it comes to pol­i­tics? There ap­pears to be a lack of de­sire to dis­cuss pol­i­tics on the col­lege cam­pus of Maryville. No one wants to talk. Why is that?  

nbsp;Maryville stu­dents were asked about the po­lit­i­cal prob­lems fac­ing the United States to­day over the past sev­eral weeks. It was shock­ing that very few stu­dents wanted to be on the cam­era. The Maryville stu­dents had two key is­sues. 1) No one wanted to of­fend any­one else or to be yelled at by the op­po­si­tion. 2) Stu­dent were afraid that they were not go­ing to be smart enough to an­swer the ques­tions. This is so wrong. 

The in­ter­views were meant to be fun and light hearted con­ver­sa­tions. Tough ques­tions were never part of the in­quiry. The in­for­ma­tion that was be­ing asked was sim­ple.  Would the stu­dents be vot­ing? Why had picked they picked who­ever they picked? The most im­por­tant ques­tion was an in­quiry as to what the stu­dent de­sired to see in the next four years. Vot­ing is that sim­ple. What do you want? 

Many were in­ter­viewed but few al­lowed them to be recorded on cam­era. There were Re­pub­li­cans and De­moc­rats, and some felt they were in the mid­dle of both par­ties. The biggest sur­prise is that some col­lege kids had no idea what they were talk­ing about! This was the most both­er­some. It is great to have an opin­ion but it can be ex­tremely harm­ful when that opin­ion is based on mis­in­for­ma­tion. It was ev­i­dent that the stu­dents were be­ing in­formed through their so­cial me­dia ac­counts.  

So­cial me­dia led the stu­dents who were against our cur­rent pres­i­dent Don­ald J Trump to hate him per­son­ally. The rea­sons were be­yond pol­i­tics. One stu­dent did not know the name Joe Biden as the op­pos­ing can­di­date. This stu­dent was ve­he­mently vot­ing against Trump. The stu­dent was asked where she ac­quired her ha­tred for Trump. She re­sponded with, “Look at so­cial me­dia! See all the stuff he is post­ing. If you paid at­ten­tion to his tweets you would hate him too.” The stu­dents that ap­pre­ci­ated Trump had a vastly dif­fer­ent source of in­for­ma­tion. These stu­dents liked the Pre­tendent be­cause of his ac­com­plish­ments as pres­i­dent.  

 Maryville stu­dents have a right to vote. They have a right to their opin­ions and de­sires for the next four years. They have a re­spon­si­bil­ity to keep them­selves in­formed. They might want to look past so­cial me­dia for a broader view of the facts at hand. Be­ing an in­formed voter will help our Maryville stu­dents have a big­ger im­pact on our fu­ture.  

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