The Glasgow Guardian spoke to ten American UofG students from eight states about voting, family dynamics, and their worries about the future.
When Kennedy woke up to the news that Donald Trump had been re-elected, she felt “a numb shock.” As president of the American and British Society (GUABA), she had been handing out voter registration forms outside of the Wolfson building only a month earlier to help fellow American students register to vote.
Kennedy is one of over 1,000 Americans who come to the University of Glasgow each year. For many of them, the 2024 Presidential Election was their first time voting in a presidential race and watching it unfold from abroad.
Despite polls predicting a too close to call election, Trump won the popular vote by more than 2.5 million and swept the electoral college votes in all battleground states. Returning for his second term, he is set to make history as the first convicted felon to serve as president of the United States.
Shane, a master’s student in International Relations from Kentucky, had been closely following polling data before the election and anticipated Kamala Harris would do well. When he woke up and checked the results of the presidential and Senate races, he instead felt “dread.”
Following the election from abroad had stirred mixed feelings. He shared: “I would say I definitely feel a sense of comfort being away, but then also, at the same time, I feel like it’s dramatic to say ‘survivor’s guilt,’ but it kind of feels that way, where I was privileged enough to leave the country to study abroad, while a lot of my friends, who will be significantly more negatively affected by the outcome of this result – queer friends, minority friends, my female friends – they’re all back home, and they’re not going to have the access to the things that they need that I have here.”
For Tina, the results came as a shock. She thought, “Wow, I really am in my own echo chamber of political ideas and beliefs, so it’s shaken me up a bit with like, if I’m just having a lot of positive reinforcement with the internet, or even with my friends, I feel like I need to be more aware of different political ideas.”
Tina is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Japan and grew up in Laos. She described having “an irrational fear” that her citizenship would be called into question, saying, “With all these challenges to identities, and especially with [im]migration in the States, it feels like just a step away to then control who is now a U.S. citizen.”
Uma, a Politics and Linguistics student and GUABA Treasurer, felt “dismayed” by the election results, but quickly turned her attention to Virginia’s upcoming Gubernatorial election in 2025, asking, “Since the states do have so much power, what can I do to ensure that we elect a Democrat for our Governor?”
Uma can’t remember the exact number of times she’d voted in local elections before, but it’s been at least four. “If you’re not happy with the outcome of an election, and you didn’t even vote, it feels a little bit hypocritical. So I feel like I need to at least try to work towards the U.S. that I want to see,” she reasoned.
While Kennedy didn’t agree with Trump’s policies, the day after the election she wanted to be respectful of her family’s feelings, who were excited to see Trump elected and hopeful about him fulfilling his promises of a lower cost of living.
Kennedy found experiencing the election in Scotland harder than being at home in Tennessee, saying, “Scottish people, they definitely give their opinions.” Many of her relatives are Republican and voted for Trump, leaving her frustrated with the conversations around her about Republican voters. She described it as: “People here tend to sort of group all Trump voters into one little category.”
“A lot of people that I love and care about vote for Trump at home. So it’s people here being like, ‘Oh, y’all voted in a fascist,’ … whatever title you choose to give to him. And it’s … name-calling my family and friends at home.”
She felt that this reflected broader dynamics in American politics, saying, “It’s attacking the voters instead of holding leaders accountable, which I feel is a common theme in America.”
Lucas, a third-year exchange student from Pennsylvania, observed that while people in the UK and abroad might feel the larger impact of American foreign policy, “for some people it’s kind of a bit more remote, it’s kind of a bit more of an intellectual game, it’s a bit more of a form of entertainment. And for others it bears consequences for the[ir] life experience.”
Kennedy is not the only one to differ with her family on politics. Although Annie’s immediate family living in New York was “outraged” by the results, she suspects her extended family, who are from a Republican-majority state, had a different reaction. “We don’t talk about politics, because it ruins the family,” she said.
Colson, a third-year from Virginia, thought Trump’s re-election signaled deeper issues within American politics, saying, “I think there’s a really bad frame of mind in most Americans that they see Trump is the problem. Trump is the end-all, be-all. If we just get rid of Trump, we’re fine.”
In regards to issues that American voters described as some of the most important, the economy and immigration, Colson felt that American elections, with their focus on domestic issues, were “deeply selfish.” “The impact that America has globally is much more [of] an important issue to vote on than its impact domestically,” he argued.
“Half of the globe could probably starve, and Americans would still get to the ballot box and be like, ‘Well, immigration is a really important issue’.”
Colson was one of 0.5% or over 750,000 of American voters who cast their vote for Jill Stein, the Green party presidential candidate. “I knew that my state was going to go Blue regardless. So I did vote Green because I was like, I just can’t support the Democrats and what they stand for, in terms of their foreign policy agenda,” he said.
Commenting on Gen Z’s potential to tip the scales in a more progressive direction, Annie said, “It’s definitely a bit scary just realizing just how much of the world is so against change and anything new. So when you hear ‘change the world’ it’s a bit like, does the world really want to change?”
Colson was similarly doubtful, reasoning “if you look at the Vietnam War protests, that’s the same generation that are now the [baby] boomers, and are, you know, kind of resistant to any meaningful change.”
“So I think every generation when it’s young, maybe proposes new ideas, but I think eventually it’ll settle into being not as progressive as they want to be,” he argued.
He says misinformation is now “conflating politics with aesthetics and lifestyle and classical kind of portraits [portrayals] of masculinity. I think that’s a weird thing that the right has managed to tie together, and a strange thing that seems to have captivated a lot of young people in America.”
Tina thought Trump and Harris’s social media strategies leaned into the entertainment aspect at the expense of focusing on policies, saying, “Especially with Trump and Biden, it felt like I was watching a reality TV show a bit, and I was like, you’re just insulting each other, we’re not actually talking about things here.” She continued, “I feel like we’re really drifting away from what politicians are, their whole job is to make policies, and to enforce things, but it’s kind of become a game of who can market the best.”
Lucas described feeling motivated to vote in this election. Considering Harris’s personality, he remarked, “I honestly felt like she was a quality candidate, and the kind of style that I appreciate in politicians is people who are more composed and even, as well as confident. I think she showed that off, certainly in the debate.”
In regards to Trump, Lucas felt that “he is more of a boisterous, kind of aggressive person, and there are moments where he can be mean or rude to his political opponents. And I do concede that he’s very entertaining, but he doesn’t embody the qualities that I would want in a politician.”
While most students described voting by mail as a relatively straightforward process, Addie, a second-year student from Illinois, spoke about the difficulties she encountered in casting her vote from abroad. She called her local election authorities to make sure she was filling out her ballot correctly and described receiving “no help whatsoever.” “At a certain point, it’s like, is it so confusing because it’s voter suppression?,” she wondered.
Lindsay, a second-year student from New York, shared that after hearing her British peers’ anxieties about future elections in the UK, she fears a similar trend for British politics. “I feel like it almost does give people with similar viewpoints a platform to build off of,” she said.
Addie similarly worried that Trump’s victory signified a global trend towards right-wing politics, saying, “To see people terrified that that will embolden people here to behave in a similar way, that to have a man like Trump in a position of power who can so openly discriminate against people, who can openly assault people, and have absolute unchecked power over the U.S. military, for example.”
Seeing anti-Trump protests in Scotland after the election, Addie was initially skeptical of their effectiveness. Her perspective has since changed. “If we are going to try to go against this massive global issue of right-wing politics rising, then we have to be united across continents and across countries. It can’t be something that’s just isolated to the U.S.,” she argued.
Annie anticipated a “rocky next four years.” “A lot of things are going to happen that are going to be terrible for us, and hopefully by the end of the four years people are going to realize that they made a huge mistake, and then they’ll vote for someone else,” she predicted.
Lucas spoke of the increasing polarisation between American voters on partisan issues such as abortion, saying “It’s a sign of, I think, very wide differences, which worries me because it raises the question about whether or not you can have reconciliation between parties.”
Tina shared that the election has influenced her decision about whether she wants to build a long-term future in the U.S. “It’s the opposite of encouraged, it’s dissuaded me from going back. I did kind of think, eventually, I might want to live there and see what it’s like, because it is still half of my identity. And it scares me, because me being both queer, a woman, and a person of color, these sorts of [Trump’s] policies will greatly affect me,” she shared.
“Might be a good idea to stay in Europe for a few more years,” said Uma, perhaps only half-jokingly.
