Family, environment shape political views
Young voters:“have you seen the other guy?” in presidential contest
In an election where studies tell us more voters than ever believe this moment marks an essential choice for the future of the country, two young, Albany-area voters described their enthusiasm to cast ballots not as active, positive choices, but rather as inevitable byproducts of their political values and how awful they think the other option is.
Edwin Lawson, 21, is a Conservative who will be voting for President Donald J. Trump, while Aria Winter, 33, is a progressive who will be voting for Joe Biden.
The Times Union separately interviewed the two voters to
learn more about why they support their candidates.
They identified early political memories that made an impression on them from a young age, followed later by more formative political experiences as teenagers or young adults.
For Lawson, he first remembers seeing family and friends returning from Iraq in the mid-2000s, and having a vague understanding that the war had to do with something called 9/11. Later, while in high school in 2016, he attended a program to study law and government and watched the election of Trump unfold.
For Winter, she remembers her parents’ outrage at how former President Bill Clinton was treated by Republicans during his impeachment investigation, and then she remembers the election of Barack Obama, whom she still points to as her foremost political hero.
But when asked whether those moments were when they began identifying with a political ideology — or whether they already leaned that way — they point to their families and environments as primary shapers of their political beliefs.
In both cases, it was hard for them to pinpoint whether that was when their political ideologies emerged, or whether their mindsets are instead a product of their upbringing, family and environment.
Lawson said his commitment to the Republican Party over the last few years has been borne out of a gap between what he is hearing from
the liberal media and from liberal politicians and what he can see in his own life.
New York’s SAFE Act prohibits gun magazines from holding more than seven rounds. Yet Lawson grew up on a farm that his family has had for 40 years, and he is a duck hunter, an activity that requires firing a lot of shells. Lawson noted the SAFE Act makes duck hunting and acquiring ammo much more difficult. He also said his family has friends who are police officers, and who legally need to carry weapons that exceed the law’s strict requirements.
What he heard from the media or from his college professors — whom he feels are often liberal-leaning — about political or public policy issues like guns, the Supreme Court, freedom of speech or any number of other issues didn’t match up to what he knew from experience to be true or to what he felt a reasoned, careful accounting of the facts led him to.
“It’s that mob mentality on the left-leaning side,” Lawson said. “They say, ‘This is right. And if you don’t agree with it, you’re wrong.’ And you ask them why, and they just say, ‘Because.’”
That frustration Lawson felt in political debates makes him extra cautious when reading the news, he said.
He tries to read from a variety of sources across the political spectrum, and is skeptical about bias or any kind of slant. He said papers like The
Washington Post are not “fake news,” contrary to what the president says, but they are biased — as everyone is to some degree. He believes that the media treat the president unfairly — particularly in person at his news briefings — and won’t give him his share of credit when he does things right.
Lawson, who is the president of the University at Albany College Republicans, said he believes the social pressure against conservatism is particularly acute on campus.
In the classroom, students are eager to jump on anyone who doesn’t say the politically correct thing in a given situation, he said. Lawson pointed to a student at Fordham University who was suspended after being pictured with a gun, as well as the de-platforming of conservative podcaster and media figure Ben Shapiro at Syracuse University.
Trump wasn’t Lawson’s first choice in the 2016 Republican primary, although he has come to appreciate him more over the years.
“He’s like a reality star. And I mean, that’s what he was. So he kind of feels out the room a little bit and says outrageous things — think about all the free media attention this guy gets,” he said. “But at the same time, he enacts policies that are fantastic.”
Lawson said he likes the conservative direction the Supreme Court has gone in over the past four years, and thinks Trump is best suited to handle the economy. Although he disagrees with Trump’s positions on climate change, which Lawson says is clearly a major issue. He also believes Trump’s behavior is at times unbecoming, such as when Trump went after Megyn Kelly during the 2016 debates, or when the president uses social media.
“I just really, really wish they would take away his Twitter,” he said.
But at the end of the day, presidential elections are a binary choice, and Trump is his guy.
Lawson said he agrees with a description of Biden given by comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan as like a dim flashlight, and he is concerned that the former vice president could die in office if elected. That would leave California Sen. Kamala Harris in charge, whom Lawson said was too harsh on drug offenses as attorney general of California and is “just not likable.”
“You know, I mean, like Joe Biden. ... You watch this man speak and you’re like, what’s happening?” Lawson said, referring to Biden’s occasional gaffes and misstatements. “Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, these are the options we’re given.”
Winter believes her choice is equally clear cut.
“What am I going to do? Vote for Trump? I’m a Black, trans woman.
I’m going to vote for Trump? No. So it’s going to be Joe Biden,” Winter said. “And I’m not going to abdicate my responsibility by not voting, either.”
Winter was born in Detroit, but she has lived all across the United States. Her mother was a psychologist, and her father a doctor who practiced internal medicine. They were both Democrats, and her mother was active in the civil rights movements of the 1960s.
Four years ago, after her mother died by suicide and her father was checked into a nursing home in the care of Winter’s extended family, Winter returned to Westchester County, where she lived as a teenager.
She stayed with a friend for some time, but then decided to move to
Albany. Winter drives Uber here, does tarot card readings and is a co-chair of the Capital Region Democratic Socialists of America, a political organization on the left of American political discourse whose values were championed on the national stage by Sen. Bernie Sanders in his two presidential runs.
The root of her politics, she said, is compassion.
“Capitalism has kind of made everybody a little more selfish. And not only is selfishness accepted, it’s promoted and encouraged,” Winter said. “And when you do that, it automatically creates a shift of resources away from people who don’t have the capability to deal with people who are trying to take advantage of them literally all the time.”
She pointed to what she described as a corrosive effect that capitalism has on the health care industry.
Winter said, prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act in
2010, one of her cousins grew sick and died because he didn’t realize how sick he was and was too reluctant to pay to see a doctor. He had recently graduated from dental school and was thousands of dollars in debt, she said, and his health insurance wouldn’t kick in until he started his residency. So he tried to wait it out.
“That is unforgivable,” she said. “The government spent thousands of dollars in loans to even get him to that point, and you’re just going to let him die because he doesn’t want to go to the hospital, because he didn’t realize how sick he was?”
This story is not unique, Winter said. She believes that “everybody has those kind of stories of the system not being built up to help people.”
She pointed to Trump as an example of a person at the top of the capitalist system who tries to take advantage of those beneath them. The president has “caused the single greatest regression in the last 50 years of social policy,” she said.
Winter said she may not love Biden, but she thinks he’s a decent man who will try his best, and the reality of the situation is that progressives need to make a choice between him or Trump — not withhold their vote because their candidate of choice didn’t win the nomination.
“We’re only going to get one of these two people. It’s going to be Joe Biden, or it’s going to be Donald Trump. We’re past the point where we decided. Bernie lost — so, I mean, sorry,” she said.
“People died to get you the right to (vote),” she continued. “If you want to live in a capitalist democracy or something, you’ve got to participate in the system. And even if you want to change the system, you’ve got to participate in the system.
“Unfortunately, these are the options we’re given.”