Open Letter to U.S. President Donald J. Trump Re iGlobe Project Results
Dear Mr. President,
My name is Kendall Haney, and I am Editor-in-Chief of our school newspaper, The iGlobe, here at K12 International Academy. On behalf of our newspaper’s student writing staff, I congratulate you on your recent White House victory. The task before you is clearly not an easy one, but it is my personal opinion that you ran because you believed you could ‘Make America Great Again.’ Furthermore, when you decided to run I believe it was with the idea of a legacy in mind for your grandchildren.
Back in November I came into possession of a poll your Trump campaign team sent out to its supporters. In it they listed your agenda items in the form of a multiple-choice survey that you requested your supporters to take. When I saw it, I felt like the students at my school should have the opportunity to think about the same issues that you are. I thought they should have a chance to vote also. We didn’t vote in your poll that the letter said you intend to use to gauge your supporters intentions. That would skew your results with what young people like myself—people who don’t vote in elections yet—might think. Rather, I recreated your poll word for word, and made it an in-house survey that I posted in our online school newspaper throughout the month of December and much of January. I thought you might be interested in the results. Here they are:
What I thought was most interesting about the end results, was the mathematical fact that most people like the bulk of what you offer. They want ISIS ended, they want veterans cared for, and they want to feel safe. They depart company from your agenda when it comes down to something simple: is the plan offered something they would want done to themselves?
For example, people said they don’t want a wall, but they do want federal funding to sanctuary cities cut. That’s interesting and noteworthy because I think it means they want laws enforced, but they don’t want a wall to separate them from people we at least share this continent with if not a kinship. It does go back to ‘treat others the way you want to be treated.’ The same could be said about the split decision represented in the numbers on the Muslim travel pause from terror hotspots versus the outright rejection of removing all illegals regardless of circumstances from the country for simply not having papers. In short, I think that means the American people know that cookie cutter laws don’t fit all situations. They don’t work. This ban from war-torn countries leaves good people out in the cold. This ban reminds me of telling a kid ‘we’ve cured your parent’s cancer…sure, that person died from the treatment…but, no more cancer!’ The numbers to me say that immigration is a subject matter that cannot be run by flowchart; it must be run by people who want to enforce the spirit of the law…not the letter of it.
Anyway, I just thought you would be interested in these results. As for me, I would be very interested in two things. As my school does have a newspaper that I work for, I would like us to be in the lottery for a skype White House press briefing seat. My teachers insist that what we write is fair and apolitical in our reporting. We report facts under news, and opinions where they belong. Second, I would like to invite one of your staff to a 15 minute iGlobe schoolwide meeting so that my fellow students might have the opportunity to get to know your administration better and vice versa. I know your staff is incredibly busy. But, could one of your staff spare 15 minutes via an online meeting? That’s how we go to school. It’s kind of funny to watch teachers pour in each morning around 8 AM via their skype accounts, like they just walked through their classroom door.
One day, it will be us in the lead. Today it is you. As we watch, teach us well.
Sincerely,
Kendall Haney
iGlobe School Newspaper Editor-in-Chief
Our website: http://icademyglobe2015-16.wixsite.com/theiglobe
