In an overwhelmingly liberal community, U Prep tries to teach objective politics

Confusing. Broken. Polarized. When asked for a gut-reaction to America’s political landscape, these descriptors were echoed by many up-and-coming voters at U Prep.

The main problem pinpointed by students is the rapidly expanding rift between the Republican and Democratic parties.

Senior Lily Orth-Smith said, “I think everything is becoming increasingly more extreme.”

Senior Nick Sage adds that “not enough attention is being put on bringing the people of the country together.”

Instead, many members of the community feel that politicians are just hungry for attention. Senior Jing Redman, sees this when she watches the debates. “It’s really interesting because they look like high schoolers, and they all talk over each other and are disrespectful to each other,” she said.

Many high-schoolers might dispute the comparison between themselves and the cutthroat personas they see on TV, but some feel that intolerance of opinion isn’t so rare at U Prep. According the Bay Area Center for Voting Research, Seattle ranks in the top 20 for most liberal cities in America– a fact that is evident in the microcosm of U Prep. Here, the liberal voice is heard loud and proud, with the consequence of an environment where conservative students often feel silenced and isolated.

Frustrated, Sage says, “It’s come to the point where we’re militant liberal, like we won’t even consider Republican ideas.”

One conservative senior asked to remain anonymous, saying that “if I were to be [named] in the paper I would have been questioned by many of my friends and I think that probably would have changed a lot of the ways people would have thought of me. I don’t want my political beliefs to be the deciding factor on whether or not I’m going to be friends with someone.”

This senior grew up going to liberal schools in Seattle and says that keeping their political opinions (for example their pro-life views) to themselves has become habit.

History teacher Karen Sherwood has seen this imbalance of opinion in classes. She relates to U Prep’s majority liberal student body.

“Since the majority of students at U Prep seem to have more liberal views, the conservative view often gets silenced or shut down,” Sherwood said.

However, this senior argues that “I don’t think that I should be used to this feeling of having to keep it all to myself. I feel like people should be able to listen and have a civil debate with you if you want.”

The conservative senior hopes that in class, people will engage in less one-sided arguments because such bias is “not really fair to everyone, you have to be able to learn about everything in order to have your own view of politics.”

Sherwood also teaches the state-mandated Civics class where such lop-sided arguments often occur and says that it’s a matter of exposure. “The initial knee-jerk reaction is [for students in Civics] to shut down [opposing viewpoints],” Sherwood said. “If we talk about the importance of listening to the other point of view [rather] than getting rid of it, more people are willing to reign it in for a bit.”

Nick Napier, a senior taking the class, echoes Sherwood’s words: “It’s easy to become a fanatic or one side of the other, but it’s important to analyze each issue from a neutral perspective and then make a decision after that.”

Aside from facilitating well-rounded discussion, Sherwood and fellow Civics teacher Laura Zaugg, are tasked with inspiring young people to vote. Many students feel disconnected from politics, a truth Zaugg blames on the fact that “the people in government don’t represent, don’t look like their constituents. The people in our state legislature are old, upper-class white guys and that is not what our state is.”

But Zaugg has some tricks up her sleeve for encouraging the reluctant voter: “Find community. Vote with someone and make a little voting party. It’s a mail-in ballot so you can do it at any time now. You can do it over pizza! But have some way to celebrate it.”

Orth-Smith takes a more tough-love approach when it comes to getting her peers to vote. “People say that they don’t feel educated enough to vote. Well then go educate yourself. Go do something about it,” she said. Orth-Smith’s no-nonsense advice stems from her opinion that non-voters are “throwing away the future.” She feels that “saying that you’re not going to vote is just kind of saying that you don’t really care about your own future or the future of your children, and I think that that is just kind of selfish.”

While there is a lot of tension between people with different opinions during the election season, deciding who to vote for or whether they will even cast a vote at all, Sage believes that people should decide based on who can best unify us.

Sage said, “To all of the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, I would ask the same question: What are you going to do to bring us together as a nation and as a people?”

By: Emma Kellogg, Kai Milici, Emily Morrissey