Ally and Christine introduce the episode.
Then you will hear three interviewees expressing their views.
Throughout this pandemic, there have been countless lives lost and put at risk crowded protest
gatherings and a presidential election like no other. Starting way back in January, President
Donald Trump was informed of the coronavirus outbreak that was currently underway in China,
which ultimately reached to us late January. His response, we have a totally under control. By
March, the virus was spreading all over the US undetected for weeks. Yet Trump was still falsely
assuring the public that the cases would go down and waited to declare a state of emergency
until March 13. The stock market was plummeting case numbers were rising, and the death toll
kept increasing. And the United States started experiencing a second peak this fall around the
election time in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which continues to worsen, and more in the line than
ever before. The 2020 presidential election will forever be historic. How did all these events
leading up to the election impact the views, beliefs, actions and mindsets of first time voters?
In this episode we will discuss with University of Michigan students how they felt about this
presidential election and what actions they took. Specifically, we spoke to three diversity of
students who have each had a very different experience to share throughout this pandemic.
You talked a lot about the Black Lives Matter movement and like clearly, like with this pandemic,
there were protests that occurred, you know, how did that impact you at all? Yeah, I learned I’m
from a small town. So I I did participate in my town and my I’m from Connecticut again. So there
was a couple protests in Connecticut that all the ones I went to abide by social distancing
guidelines. So it was everyone was wearing masks. So it was never kind of it was never really a
question for me whether it was safe or not, because everybody was probably less social
distance. And they should be but everyone was wearing masks and people in our town were
kind of like organizers of the protests were kind of facilitating it and making sure that people
were being socially distance. But I definitely saw protests in like bigger cities like New York City,
I had friends go to that were not social distance at all. I so I think it was a really interesting time
because it almost felt like the pandemic like kind of froze in everyone just like forgot about it for
a second.
You told me that you worked at the polls in October, correct? Yeah, it was for precinct four dash
three, I believe, which is the same precinct that I live in. Um, so that’s kind of cool that I like
would have voted that I voted on absentee ballot. But if I had done in person, I would have
voted at that location. It was my first time voting to because I turned.
I was 17, the last presidential election. So now I’m 21. And I could vote for the first time in the
presidential election, which is pretty exciting. And it was my first time working the polls as well.
So they put us through a zoom training session before election day. And like the news has been
saying this whole time that this election is very, like gonna be insane, blah, blah, but the training
session they were going over, like what to do if someone is a threat to the polling location, what
to do if someone like refuses to do this or refuses to do that, like, you’re not allowed to wear any
campaign materials within 100 feet of the polling location. So there was like, procedures for that,
etc. But honestly, it was like the actual day of Election Day, completely smooth no mishaps, no,
like traumatic events, by and public health major, which inherently comes a lot of politics around
this time of the year, especially, especially with pandemic going on. But yeah, I think democracy
is inherent in any subject. So I would say I’m involved
You qualify as an international student, correct. I’m, in fact, actually yet from Zimbabwe, so I
can’t vote here. Um, and because I’m kind of like a citizen in China as well. I can’t vote there,
either. I grew up in Zimbabwe, and kind of just like the par for the course, my entire life was
expect things to go wrong. So I mean, like when it when I first heard the news of kind of like
international students being threatened to, you know, not be able to come back in the country or
even, you know, not be able to properly resume their classes. I was worried. But I like to say
that I went off the assumption that something as drastic as this is not going to be met without
some kind of push back. And I lived off of the hope that, you know, there’s enough pushback,
and also, you know, you have to be active in the push back to an extent. It’s hard sometimes for
international students to have a voice because there’s this like, constant fear. If I do something, well, I get deported.
How does the pandemic affect your political views? I’d say it hasn’t really affected it. I mean,
certainly I’ve been in recent years following politics more and more, I guess that’s just a process
of growing up. I’ve always been political, but I’ve never been asked politically oriented as I am
now. And I attribute a lot of that to being quarantined. And having had COVID. And seeing how
poorly our administration has handled this. So I think it’s an unforgettable experience. But this
has really opened my eyes and made me a lot more of a political person, and like, someone
who really, really thinks that everyone needs to exercise the right to vote. And I do attribute that
to quarantine in the pandemic, I definitely think that everything was so social media based or at
the pandemic, through that I was able to kind of learn a lot more about issues that I was
passionate about. So like, I’ve never really used social medias, somewhere I got my news from,
but I think that I found a lot of good sources on social media that I wouldn’t have found
otherwise. It was something that I was just sitting around doing. And I think that I got a lot of my
news from social media, and I was able to, like engage with different accounts more. So I
definitely, if it wasn’t encouraging, I don’t think I would have been that in tune to social media.
And like, therefore getting my news from it. I would say it hasn’t dramatically changed them, if
not strengthened my original views. Um, I think this election this year, I don’t know if this is code
related. But it’s made me think more of a non two party system, which was never taught in
school growing up or anything like that. So something I’m very familiar with at all, but like, just
the way that things have been happening recently. I’m like, Huh, interesting thought, you know,
like, it’s like something that’s coming up more and more, but I don’t think that, um, COVID has
impacted my political views beyond strengthening my already existing views.
Did your opinions change coming back to school,
it was pretty refreshing to come back to campus, like, I’ve been living with my mom, my sister.
And we, while we do share really similar political views, like, it was so nice to come back to
campus and like, talk to my roommates, my friends who like, have not differing political views,
but like, hot like, no have like different sorts of information. And like we could discuss, and I
could hear, like, different perspectives on certain issues, like things that I wasn’t aware of, or
things like just things that I didn’t really know, it was hard to get that kind of information for my
sister, my mom, and we’d inspire. So I think it was really refreshing to be surrounded by a bunch
of people my age, who also are passionate about seeing issues with me, but like, and I could
learn from them, they could learn from me. So and I think it probably made me more.
I mean, I was always really passionate about voting, but it made me even more passionate about the
issues that I already stand for.
So even though I’m not the most political person, you know, I’m surrounded by people who are and
it’s almost hard not to be kind of like, I wouldn’t say entangle. That’s not the right word, but kind
of just like engaged in kind of, like, everything that’s happening, you know, we, we had our little
watch parties, we had our little kind of just like, nights where we would sit and watch kinda like
the real results come through. And it was very, very interesting. I don’t think it really did.
Because I think I surround myself with the same people, whether I’m here or at home, which is
maybe toxic, because I don’t get like an outside perspective. But like, also, at the same time, I
think
I share a common political view with many of the students on this campus. So like, I don’t think
I’m missing that much. I don’t know if that makes sense. But yeah, I don’t I don’t think it changed
my views in any way.
What factors influenced your political, inner personal views? I mean, there’s, there’s so many
other factors that also influenced it. But one of the main issues was definitely the pandemic. I
think that it’s been such an obviously, it’s been like, a horrible time in our country and in the
world. And I think that it was really important to me to elect a president that could, that would,
ain’t like, get us on track to getting better and like healing our country. Say, I mean, amongst
other issues, I think the pandemic was definitely one of the top, like the top reasons I left to do I
did.
I’ve come to I’ve come to arrive at like, my own personal views through a combination of you
know, just like the resources that I had available to me the resources that I like to follow, as well
as kind of just like hearing the opinions of my friends, hearing the opinions of people who vote
Democrat or people who vote republican and kind of just like, I’m arriving at my and I try very
hard to do this. And I kind of just like my goal has always been to, you know, arrive at my own
opinion, but not to also shoot down the opinions of others because, you know, there’s value in
like, listening I think what’s important at the end of the day is just critical thinking to kind of just like, you know,
take what you’ve learned, take what you’ve heard, and kind of just like form, form and form your
own thoughts, you know, and go by what you think is right. I think my parents would like
founded my political beliefs in the beginning. But I think being around people, our age is
definitely a big difference. And I think that, um, like I said, like, my friends and I have very similar
political beliefs, even if we differ on some things, like we have a very similar basis. And I don’t
think all of our parents have the same political beliefs, you know, so like, definitely learned my
basis from my parents, but I think we’ve all come from different backgrounds and like, um, still
have very similar political beliefs. Some are in some regards, and somehow in different spaces,
I guess. How do you think the US is handling COVID we have very poorly mismatched, hugely
mismanaged, like, we don’t even deserve to be ranked. A lot of things could have been done
better, I’ll be honest, their team, his administration handle everything with COVID so poorly, just
like really, I think not just myself, and I think they in our country, kind of lit a fire under people’s
bellies and like, myself included, and it made me like very passionate about electing a president
who would handle this seeing so many people dying, so many people affected by the virus, like
I, I was very passionate about electing a president who I think is capable of handling this and is
capable of getting it under control. Like the, my assumption, like when this entire pandemic firs
started was, oh, it’ll probably be over by August, if they play the cards, right? If like, most days
cooperative people just like quarantine properly and things, and the virus is contained before it
gets to a point where it can’t be contained. That never happened. You know, and I think like,
that was the greatest. That was a greatest failure, I would say, in the system in that, you know,
it’s gotten to a point where the problem wasn’t solved quick enough. And it’s gotten to a point where people in the country
naturally, I mean, naturally are fatigued by the pandemic, you know, you can only you can only
live in fear for so long before it becomes the norm. And then suddenly, you know, you’re no longer
fearful, because that’d be that’s just the norm. And, yeah, I’d say that, and it’s problematic,
because it’s hard for it’s hard for now, the government to impose any sort of restrictions,
because people are like, Oh, well, you know, it’s been, like, how long is this going to go on for?
And like, we tried this one? So is it gonna work? Again, it didn’t work the first time.
Like, a civilized country, like first world civilized country, like we have done absolutely nothing to
prevent the insane amount of deaths that we’ve experienced. And, okay, not absolutely nothing.
That’s very dramatic, but not done enough. We have not done nearly enough to prevent the
occurrences that have happened this country.
So are you shocked at how close the election was? And how was the election day night for you?
I was shocked and a little disheartened that I thought it was going to be a landslide. It seemed
like there was we’ve been through four years of kind of have a president who perpetuates
racism, like misogyny, homophobia, sexism, amongst other things, and like, I thought that
people kind of would have woken up to this and like, more people would have voted for Biden,
but unfortunately, that did not happen. And I think that that’s, like very reflective of how our
country really has a lot of work to do and like Joe Biden being president is definitely a step in the
right direction, but it’s in no way a big enough step. Like there’s so much work that we sell to do
from here on out.
No, this is in fact my first ever elections here in the United States. And I gotta say it’s quite a
surreal experience. And I’d say that it’s that that’s something that you know, that’s something
that surprised me is I mean, it makes sense you can’t just count all these votes overnight.
But just like I never expected to also be so kind of like enthralled in the whole process and like
yeah so nervous about like the results as you can every single state like turns from one color to
the other and that was that was definitely something that was very interesting. I don’t think I’m
anything dramatically huge happened but I will say it was very stressful like when each day you
know was counting votes and the state went this color is saying is Miko this call you know, like
that was very stressful even even though I was expecting not to have an outcome on election
night.
Thanks so much to Dara, Shao and Claire for talking with us for this episode of democracy
unmuted. This episode has been brought to you by Ally Schulkin, Christine Hughes and our
lovely radio instructor, professional T Hetzel.
Thanks for choosing us and we’ll see you soon
