This election, the youngest female voters were just 10 years old when Trump first became president. Here, they share how coming of age during that contentious and chaotic era shaped their political psyche.After a grueling election cycle, Donald Trump has officially been re-elected as the 47th president of the United States. In the lead up to Election Day, ELLE spoke to handful of young female voters about what it was like to come of age during his first administration. Revisit the piece, below:
This year’s youngest eligible voters were just 10 years old when former president Donald Trump won the 2016 election, reinventing politics as we know it today. From the ensuing Women’s March to the Muslim travel ban to family separations at the southern border, from the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the movement for racial justice after the death of George Floyd, a dramatic series of events have shaped this generation’s political psyche.
Since 2017, data has shown that young women are moving further to the left than past generations on issues like abortion in particular. While young women are not a monolith, this shift began in the Trump era. So, what was it like growing up during Trump’s first term in office and the years that followed? ELLE.com checked in with women across the country and the political spectrum to find out. Below, they share the moments that shaped their vantage point, ahead of an election where young voters could play a decisive role.
Maekyla Massey, 19
From Baldwin, New York, Massey now lives in New York City, where she’s a student at Columbia University. She was 11 years old during the 2016 election.
“I was in fourth grade when Trump was elected. I remember the student council was comprised of a lot of girls. We were so excited about Hillary Clinton. Of course, we knew nothing about politics then, but what was so alluring to us was the prospect of having a female president in the White House. When she was defeated by Trump in 2016, we felt defeated alongside her.
“At school, there were a lot of Spanish students who were scared they were going to get deported, even though they were born here. I remember that vividly. A lot of people were scared about the wall and all of the rhetoric that Trump would spew about immigration.
“I think what shaped my worldview was how politics was seen as taboo during Trump’s presidency. When I was in elementary school, during the first year of Trump’s term, we were just told not to talk about it. If we tried to ask questions, even in social studies classes, we were discouraged from doing so. Then during Biden’s presidency—I’m sure this has to do with me entering high school—we talked a lot about it. We could talk openly about politics without any feelings of shame.”
Madalyn Propst, 18
Propst, a youth advisor for the Florida Democratic Party and a student at Florida State University, lives in Tallahassee, Florida. She’s originally from Orlando and was 10 years old during the 2016 election.
“I first became interested in politics right before the 2016 election, because I had family members who were in the Pulse nightclub shooting. I wasn’t old enough to understand what was really going on, but I knew that there was one candidate who was willing to put anti-gun legislation out to protect people, and there was one who wasn’t. That’s all I knew about politics—it seemed like one party wanted people to die and the other didn’t.
“Trump’s entire term—and my childhood, to a large extent—is marked by an uncertainty and a fear about gun violence. My mother was a public high school teacher in Orlando. I remember very distinctly sitting in my middle school classroom and hearing that there had been another mass shooting in Florida. The first thing I could think about was copycat killers, and if they would go to my mother’s school. Then exactly a year later, there was a BB gun that looked incredibly real, and about five students were held hostage in a bathroom for about six hours, and my mother was in the building. Knowing there was nothing I could do about it, and it was a result of poor legislation, is a hallmark of his entire term in office.”
That’s all I knew about politics—it seemed like one party wanted people to die and the other didn’t.”
Riley Reed, 24
Reed is a youth advocate living in Washington, D.C. She’s from Waukesha, Wisconsin, and was 16 years old during the 2016 election.
“I got really involved in politics during the 2016 election. My high school was really, really pro-Trump. Really, really pro-Second Amendment. As a queer organizer, [it was] not the most fun place to grow up. I remember the day of the 2016 election, people were decked out in Trump gear. It was like Trump-Pence shirts, buttons, hats, signs were put up. I wore blue that day, because I honestly felt like if I wore a Hillary Clinton shirt, I’d get harassed or yelled at.
“After seeing him get elected, it definitely shook my faith in politics a lot, but it also woke me up and made me become more involved. Fast-forward to 2018, when gun violence prevention took over my life, I started doing a lot of work with March For Our Lives and Team ENOUGH. I organized my high school walkout in 2018. We were able to get several hundred students in what was a very pro-Second Amendment area [to walk out to protest gun violence]. That gave me hope that we can change something.”
Katherine Mickelson, 20
Originally from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Mickelson now lives in Waco, Texas, where she attends Baylor University. She was 11 years old during the 2016 election.
“The 2016 election was when I was in sixth grade. I remember one girl said if Trump was elected, her family was moving to Canada. I remember the rhetoric going around that if you were a woman, you had to vote for Hillary Clinton. Even at that age, I already kind of knew I didn’t align politically with Hillary Clinton, based on my family values and how my parents were voting. It was daunting to realize that was the world we were growing up in, where neither leader was going to be my first pick.
“In eighth grade, toward the middle of Trump’s presidency, I had some friends who decided they were no longer going to be friends with me, because I didn’t have the same political views as them. I think that idea and those conversations have really created this division within my generation. I believe that no matter what your beliefs and your views are, you can still maintain a friendship.
“With the Black Lives Matter movement, some friends were upset with me for not posting a black square on my Instagram—that was a trend that was going around, and it was like, everyone needs to post this. I didn’t, and I got several mean texts from people who I thought were my friends. It was already an isolating time not being in school and having the restrictions on extracurricular activities, and to have people decide that they didn’t want to be friends over a political issue was really sad.”
Michele Ming, 27
Ming lives in New York City and is originally from Houston, Texas. She’s a political director with the immigrant rights group United We Dream. She was 19 years old during the 2016 election.
“I turned 18 in 2015, and my parents got their citizenship in 2015, so [2016] was our first election together. That made it all the more important. From the first speech that Trump gave when he announced his candidacy, where he talked about immigrants in such a disparaging way, it was really eye-opening. This was opening the door for new xenophobic rhetoric to come into the political discourse in a way that I had never experienced before. When he came to office and immediately announced the Muslim travel ban, it was a confirmation of the fears that me and my family and a lot of our friends had. He’s not only just saying these things, but he’s going to act on every single thing that he said.”
Aida Sall, 19
A New Jersey native, Sall now lives in New York City and was 11 years old during the 2016 election.
“My freshman year [of high school] was 2020, so of course, a lot happened—the pandemic and the death of George Floyd. I saw the way people were emboldened to have these wild beliefs that were supported by the president. And as a Black woman, I did not feel safe. The rise of police brutality and [the death of] George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery—I spoke out against that. I felt like I had to, even though I was 14 at the time.
“I experienced a lot of racism in school. One time, we were discussing slavery, and a teacher suggested that we now have the benefit of hindsight. And maybe slave owners didn’t know slavery was bad. Things like that.
“Having Donald Trump be the first president that I really was aware of and really exposed to, the level of inflammatory rhetoric really skewed the political scene. Instead of debating solutions to address certain issues, it was debating whether or not they should be addressed at all, or if people should have the right to have them addressed.”
Cre: ELLE
