Straddling the Divide Between Harvard and Trump's States

UPDATED: December 6, 2016, at 9:56 a.m.

Tyler V. Jenkins ’19 found himself in a peculiar position during the presidential election cycle. Although he did not support President-elect Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, the Martinsburg, W. Va., native said he found himself frequently defending supporters of the business mogul to peers at Harvard.

“The way that Trump supporters were seen on this campus, I think, was not constructive at all... We never asked why,” he said. “I’ve defended quite a bit of Trump supporters even though I completely disagree with them.”

Many students who hail from states that voted for the Republican candidate echoed Jenkins’s sentiments. When Trump became the President-elect, some Harvard students reported disbelief at his victory. But students from Trump-supporting areas said they feel torn between a dejected campus and a vastly different reality at home, where many of their friends and family members celebrated Trump’s win.

Regardless of their political views, students from these areas stressed the importance of open dialogue about the election. Supporters of both candidates said they are disheartened that friends from home and school have ignored or been unwilling to listen to different perspectives. For these students, dealing with a politically polarized country in the aftermath of the election has come with new challenges.

UNDERSTANDING THE TRUMP VOTE

Some students from states that voted for Trump said they were able to understand why people in their home regions voted for the candidate, even if they disagreed with the decision.

Several students attributed Trump’s victory to dire economic situations in many regions of the United States.

Jenkins said most of his friends back home supported the New York tycoon because they believed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s economic and environmental policies would hurt the local coal industry. Jenkins said the election comes at a time when West Virginia’s economy is struggling.

“We lose a major coal company almost every month to bankruptcy,” he said. “Every time they go bankrupt, people lose their jobs… People who are retired lose their pensions. And that was basically a lot of these people’s only source of income to pay medical bills, to pay for their food… to these people, it’s literally life or death.”

Jenkins said Trump’s promises of economic revival attracted many West Virginians. The Republican nominee ended up winning the state by a 42-point margin.

“When Donald Trump comes in and he says… ‘we’re going to make coal great again,’ these people have nothing and they’re looking and they see hope with a man like Donald Trump,” he said.

Trevor A. Mullin ’17, originally from Caro, Mich., said he personally understood the economic concerns of Trump supporters. Mullin said his area was greatly affected by the 2008 economic recession and has struggled to recover since. Trump won Michigan by a 0.3 percent margin, but now former Green Party Presidential candidate Jill E. Stein ’72-73 has spearheaded a recount initiative in the state.

“Looking at the past eight years, people in my area have kind of felt neglected by the system. 2008 really hit a lot of rural areas pretty hard,” he said. “Both my parents owned a business and basically that all dried up, and for a lot of small communities there wasn’t a lot of opportunity there.”

Nevertheless, Mullin said he does not believe that Trump’s rhetoric or policies will help solve economic issues in the region.

“Coming where I come from, yes, my family was very much affected by the recession in 2008, are we where we were prior to that anymore? No. But do I think that open hatred, closed borders are going to solve those issues? No, not at all,” he said.

Others said Trump attracted voters in their areas with a new set of political priorities.

William F. Morris '17-'18 said he was a “proud” Bernie Sanders supporter in his home state of Georgia but could also see how Trump appealed to local concerns. Trump won the state by a 5.7 percent margin.

“He appeals to nationalism and populism in a way we haven’t seen since World War II,” he said. “I always call him anti-Obama in the sense that he promises change but in a very different way than Obama did.”

Sophia M. Kaufman ’18, from Charleston, W. Va., said Trump represented an option for political change for many people in her home state.

“A lot of the rhetoric that has come out of West Virginia that is very pro-Trump has been really hurtful and racist and ignorant, but at the same time a lot of those people that are voting for Trump are really in need,” she said. “I just feel like they needed a new option that was pretty anti-establishment.”

Alina G. Muñoz ’18, who hails from Staten Island, N.Y., voted for Trump. She said she voted for the Republican candidate along with many of her family members because she believes his campaign emphasized a strong work ethic. Although Clinton won New York State, Trump won Staten Island by a 16.8 percent margin. National media outlets, including the New York Times and Politico, reported that traditionally blue-collar Republican voters on the island embraced the Queens native as a hometown hero.

“I voted for Trump and my family all did,” she said. “Pretty much how my family decided who we want to vote for was who really advocates hard work.”

BEWILDERED ON CAMPUS AND AT HOME

Despite their understanding of Trump supporters, many students also reported feeling detached from either their campus or home environments after the election.

Sara A. Atske ’17, a student from South Dakota, said she felt devastated by the election, in which her home state voted for Trump by nearly a 30 percent margin. Coming from a Muslim American family, she said she found it upsetting that people she knew as friends could support a candidate who has called for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States.

“I had grown up in a place where I thought that I was respected and my family was respected, and I woke up that morning to realize that wasn’t the case,” said Atske, an inactive Crimson editor.

Atske said her attempts to reach out to Trump supporters after the election proved difficult.

“In the heat of the moment, I reached out to a few very vocal conservative friends from high school to try and see where they were coming from,” she said. “Having read Facebook posts, I know they thought that my elite liberal arts education had turned me into a ‘baby.'”

Yet, Atske said she did not think all Trump voters had malicious intentions when voting for the candidate. Rather, she lamented the way these voters made their priorities during the election.

“There’s a huge cohort of people that are generally nice people who unfortunately, I think, prioritized the slim chance of an economic gain under a Trump presidency over the safety and well-being of fellow Americans,” she said.

Other students said they believe Harvard’s campus has also become politically insulated from the rest of the country. The Crimson’s recent election survey indicated that the College’s student body is significantly more liberal than the national population. While 87.3 percent of surveyed undergraduates expressed support for Hillary Clinton, the national popular vote was much tighter, with tallies as of Tuesday showing Clinton winning by a less than 2 percent margin.

“I think that Harvard can become a very, very liberal microcosm of what represents our country,” said Kaufman, a Democrat. “It can be very removed from the flyover states and rural areas like where I’m from.”

Contending with Harvard students’ criticisms of Trump voters has also proven a challenge for some.

Morris said he feels that Harvard students’ criticisms of Trump supporters, though often valid, can be sanctimonious. While he said some Trump voters held racist views, Morris said he believes Harvard students are also complicit in perpetuating structural discrimination.

“Some [Trump supporters] are racist and probably all of them are structurally racist, institutionally racist, meaning that they don’t actively combat a system that’s based upon inequality. But who does?” Morris said. “Everyone at… Harvard goes into finance, that’s inequality for the entire world. You’re literally making money for rich people, and Harvard kids are going to condemn these people for voting for Trump.”

Muñoz said she voted for Trump partially because of her stance on illegal immigration. She said many students at Harvard do not understand her position and are surprised by it because of her Hispanic heritage.

“It’s like ‘oh my God, you’re Hispanic,’” she said, referring to the way students question her stance on illegal immigration. “But my grandmother came here and said 'yes,' she’ll fill out the paperwork and she waited six months and then they got to leave [Cuba] under [former president Fidel] Castro. But then the same people that lived two blocks away from her in Havana could just get here, be undocumented, and work for below minimum wage.”

Muñoz said she believes undocumented immigrants “took up some spots” for citizenship allocation that could otherwise be awarded to those who seek legal immigration into the United States.

Mullin, who voted for Hillary Clinton, said there are gaps between the concerns of Harvard students and people from the Midwest, especially regarding social issues.

“You can see on liberal campuses that [college students] don’t understand how Midwestern families don’t see the struggles that they do,” he said. “But in Midwestern families, you’re very much more concerned about being able to put dinner on the table than whether or not people you don’t necessarily interact with are seeing more injustice.”

A PATH FORWARD

Despite their differing views on the business mogul, many students said they believe engaging with a variety of political perspectives is important in the face of polarization.

Mullin said he disagreed with some Harvard students’ decisions to block Trump supporters on social media.

“You’ll see on Facebook a lot of posts that were like, ‘If you voted for Donald Trump delete me now’ and that’s just very narrow minded and selfish in my opinion because those are the people you need to engage with,” he said.

Jenkins echoed Mullin’s statement.

“Engagement is the way you fight ignorance,” he said. “I’m basically seeing two sides of the same coin and it’s very frustrating to me, sometimes… The essence of the division is that people don’t understand each other and they don’t hear the opposite sides of the coin.”

Atske said she feels understanding Trump supporters’ perspectives is politically important, especially for liberal students looking to future election cycles.