by Anna Fofana
The recent election has caused a major uproar in the United States. After former Vice President Joesph R. Biden won the election, many voters felt a sigh of relief, while others felt disappointed.
Matt Gluckman, who majors in government and politics at St. John’s University, lives and breathes politics. “Election day to me is like the Superbowl, ” Gluckman said.
He has watched the election live since 2008 when they called former President Obama into office. Due to his passion for politics, it made his girlfriend, Skylar Hertz, a sophomore theatre and performance major at Purchase, get into it as well.
Gluckman voted for Trump while Hertz voted for Biden. The main reason why Gluckman voted for Trump was because historically, the United States hasn’t had a one-term president since Washington. Hertz also thought that Trump had a chance at winning because the electoral map was glowing red at the beginning of election night. With this couple, it came down to a difference of opinions.
“I would never classify myself as a Trump supporter,” says Gluckman. “I feel as though his behavior has turned me off.”
But the other reason why he voted for him was because he didn’t like some of Biden’s policies and was afraid of seeing those policies in action during his presidency.
“I was a little mad at him when he voted for Trump but less mad once he lost,” Hertz added.
Purchase economics major Luciano Aprile was pretty impartial during the course of the election. In fact, he didn’t even vote. Aprile lives in New York state which is a politically blue state so he figured that even if he were to vote red, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in the electoral college.
He does tend to lean more right however when it comes to politics, but it doesn’t mean that he likes Trump. He believes that Trump makes the right look really bad because he polarizes everything. However, he doesn’t like Joe Biden’s personality either which is why he chose not to vote at all.
One college student voted for Trump due to her believing that a Biden/Harris America will hurt us beyond belief. She thinks that they are typical politicians who have contradicted themselves on many occasions and still to this day, no one knows what they are gonna do about half of the problems in America.
She mentioned Biden said he would do away with fracking once he was in office on multiple occasions, but when he debated Trump he said the opposite and called Trump a liar. But there was proof the next day of Biden saying there is no place for fracking. When the results came out, she was surprised by the number of votes that went toward Biden.
Another college student who also voted for Trump doesn’t believe that Biden will be able to accomplish anything that he ran on. He said that even if Biden tries to, the senate and the supreme court will block him from passing too many policies. He believes that if Trump were to have won the election instead of Biden, the country will run as it has for the past four years, but there will be more protesting and rioting.
Unlike the two that voted for Trump, Alex Belyaninov, a junior history major at Purchase, had strong feelings towards President Trump. Although he wasn’t pro-Biden, he felt that his dislike for the President was enough for him to settle for Biden. Every day, he would track the votes thinking, “Did he win? Did he win?” and once there were enough swing states that turned blue, he knew there was a shot to win this.
“Having Trump voted out, is like going to sleep, for the first time after getting out of a horrible relationship,” says Belyaninov. “You feel good.”