Donald Trump can’t be trusted because his inflammatory, racially and ethnically charged rhetoric is divisive.
Hillary Clinton can’t be trusted because she could have compromised national security when she used her private email account for State Department business.
Bernie Sanders can’t be trusted because he embraces socialist ideology.
Those are all claims that some local high school students have heard about the presidential candidates. And those claims have the students wondering if a political process that allows candidates to sling mud at opponents and avoid focusing on their own platform is trustworthy.
“We should be able to depend on a candidate to stay on task, but if they’re a great liar, they will be a great liar. Nobody seems to be asking if what they are saying is true,” said Brittany Wilson, 18, a junior at Akron’s East high school. “Candidates have a decision to make — they need to decide to run a clean campaign. It’s up to them to make a decision to focus on the things they want to do, and it’s their decision to approve or disapprove their ads.”
Brittany is among a group of students at East, Firestone and Manchester high schools who participated in a Newspapers in Education project developed for the Akron Beacon Journal by the Ohio Council for Law Related Education. The project included lessons from the Character Counts program, which teaches the attributes of trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. The students were then asked to compare those qualities with the way the presidential candidates are behaving.
The bottom line is the students believe the candidates are behaving badly and are lacking all of the positive character traits.
“Good candidates shouldn’t be shady. They will actually handle their business by telling us what is good about them and not put down other candidates,” Sasha Hughes, 17, said during a recent discussion in a government class at East.
“They’re not acting like responsible adults.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center recently issued a report called “The Trump Effect: The Impact of the Presidential Campaign on our Nation’s Schools.” The unscientific survey of about 2,000 teachers nationwide found that a majority of the respondents believe the presidential campaign is generating fear and anxiety among children of color, kindling racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom and increasing bullying, harassment and intimidation of students whose race, religion and ethnicity have been verbal targets of candidates.
The local students, however, say they haven’t witnessed their peers being influenced by the negative behavior of the candidates. In fact, they say that they reject mimicking the behavior of the “bad examples” by candidates.
“Somehow people think by bringing somebody else down, they are bringing themselves up,” Hughes said. “Nobody wants to act like that.”
Hughes’ classmate at East, Juanese Franklin, 17, said that “bullying was already in place before this election. We treat each other so terribly already and the people running for president aren’t any better. They are running to lead our country and they should be nice.”
Ian Nagle, 16, chimed in, saying, “Kids bully to bully, not because they see the candidates acting that way.”
Brandon Griffith, 16, said that while he doesn’t connect the negative actions of the candidates with the way students are treating each other, he is concerned with the message being sent by uncivil political discourse.
“Negative politics are having a big impact on our nation,” he said. “Other nations see the hate and think we’re all like that. They think we’re hypocrites.”
Many of the students suggested that the best way to stop the incivility and avoid rewarding bad behavior is to refuse to vote for candidates who don’t take the high road.
“We have the power to stop the negative campaigning by not voting for them,” said Dillon Benefield, 17.
His classmate, Tyler Silcox, 17, agreed, but questioned how long it would take for voters and politicians to catch on.
“True, we’re the people. The power is our hands,” Silcox said. “But it will take a long time to stop negative campaigning using our vote because it’s a big shift for voters and politicians.”
The students said the media can help by fact-checking the statements of politicians.
Voters also can be part of the solution by committing to staying informed, they said.
“All the hate going around is because people are being misinformed,” said Carlos Lopez, 17. “Voters have to take the time to research the candidates and somebody has to let us know when candidates are making false statements. Candidates can’t be allowed to say whatever they want, especially when what they are saying isn’t true.”
Colette Jenkins can be reached at 330-996-3731 or cjenkins@thebeaconjournal.com. She can be followed at www.twitter.com/ColetteMJenkins.