Kean students share thoughts on final presidential debate

By Christian Grullon | Published by November 12, 2020

Along with the COVID-19 Pandemic and tense race relations sparked by police brutality, the presidential election has been one of the biggest

event in 2020. Throughout everything that has been happening this year, there has been urgency to vote and to pay attention to what’s going on in the political sphere. 

Vice President Joe Biden was announced as the 46th President of the United States on Nov. 7, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump after surpassing the required 270 Electoral College votes. However, Trump and his administration has been  filing lawsuits for recounts in battleground states citing voter fraud. 

The Human Rights Institute had held various events relating to the 2020 election addressing voting, social issues and the debate. President Lamont Repollet had recently sent an email on Nov. 6 with updates on the election, such as the tight counts in battleground states. 

Kean students gave their thoughts on the final debate between Biden and Trump. 

Junior Tahmin Choudhury said she personally feels that regardless who’s up there it doesn’t matter who won, but rather if they understood the questions that were asked and that the important thing was Trump and Biden addressing the issue facing our nation.

“As long as the issues were talked about and see what they are going to do, this pandemic has made us realize our policies have to change,” Choudhury said.

Political Science major Chevon Williams said that Biden surely got the upper hand in the debate. 

“I’m pretty sure that Joe Biden won,” Williams said. “There are things by certain candidates that definitely make you question them and someone not denouncing supremacy and calling a non-profit group and calling them an anti-cop group is not the best, but I think Joe Biden won.”

Sophomore student Myia White said the moment people really cared about was a statement Trump made in the debate. 

“The moment that people really cared about was when Trump said  ‘I’m the least racist person in the room’, I think that was something that a lot of people took that as  ‘He couldn’t be anti-racist?’,” White said. “I think that was just a bad look overall.”

Trump has been accused of making racial remarks in the past. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen claimed in his book “Disloyal: A Memoir” that Trump made a remark that he would never get the Hispanic vote because they were “too stupid” like the blacks to vote for him. 

In a poll done by Politico, 54% of voters who watched the debate believed that Biden did better than Trump, meanwhile 39% of voters believed Trump did better and 8% were undecided.

When asked how women could support him despite the allegations, White said that it’s been normalized for women to be sexually assaulted and that the President didn’t acknowledge how common it is for a woman to experience sexual assault before the age of 18. 

“Trump didn’t even acknowledge that it’s so common for a woman to experience a sexual assalut or rape before she hits age of 18,” White said, “so to me it kinda further proves that we have a culture that he contributes to and that other men in power contribute to.” 

Choudary was in agreement with White, as she said his understanding of women is a reflection of what he’s seen and grew up in a society where this is okay. 

Williams said that the sexaul asssualt allegations affect women’s role in the political field. 

“Trump and Biden have both been in allegations where other political figures have been accused of sexual assaluted,” Williams said, “and I think it shows you how much women aren’t allowed to be in the topic politics in general in that most politicians just have bad ideologies about women.”  

Since Biden’s election, Trump and his administration has refused to concede citing claims of voter fraud. Leading up to the election, Trump has repeatedly casted doubt on mail-in ballots saying that it could lead to massive fraud. Some of his supporters and members of the Republican Party have repeated those claims as well on social media.

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