CHS Gets Close Up

On January 20, 2017, President Donald J. Trump was sworn into office for the next four years as the President of the United States. People all over the country turned on their televisions and computers to tune in on this monumental event in American history.

While millions watched the inauguration electronically, 14 Clayton students had the opportunity to experience the affair up close.

“When you have an election that is so divisive from both sides, it has the ability and the tendency to pin people against one another and make things much more challenging,” CHS senior Auriann Sehi said when describing her experience attending the Close-Up Washington D.C. trip this past January.

Close-Up is a nation wide organization that allows high school students the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. for a week and explore Capitol Hill, museums, and numerous monuments and memorials. In addition to learning about D.C., students meet with others from all over the country, and explore different views and cultures while learning how to exchange ideas and facilitate polite conversations.

CHS history teacher David Aiello has been chaperoning the Close-Up trip with CHS for the past 18 years.

“[Close-Up’s] attitude is that you can learn a lot about government and politics and stuff by watching movies and taking a class, but when you’re in DC there’s so many things that make it so much cooler to learn and it has a lasting impact,” Aiello said. “[Close-Up’s] current tagline is ‘what happens here can change your life’ and that’s very much the idea. So instead of sitting in classrooms and getting lectured to by teachers and reading articles, they actually take you out into the city.”

Freshman Sophie Axelbaum signed up for this trip in September 2016.

Although the outcome of the election was not one that she had hoped for, she enjoyed the excursion and learned a lot about American government and politics.

“On the first day we went to the archives, which is where the Bill of Rights, The constitution and Declaration of Independence are,” Axelbaum said. “The second day we went to the museum of African American History and Culture and it’s new, it opened in September and that was really really amazing. Then we saw the Washington Monument and the Lincoln memorial and I actually saw the band rehearsing for the presidential inaugural concert. We also saw the Korean and Vietnam Memorials.”

Because 2017 is a presidential inauguration year, Close-Up students also got the opportunity to attend the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

For Aiello, this inauguration was unlike the other six he has witnessed through Close-Up.

“I’ve been to every [inauguration] since Clinton and they’ve all been different and special in their own way. This one was really, really weird,” he said.

Aiello compared Trump’s inauguration to Obama’s inauguration, and explained that the inauguration of former President Obama had a huge crowd of people cheering and dancing, and the mood was overwhelmingly uplifting and positive.

“At this one, I didn’t get that sense. It seemed kind of low key,” Aiello said.

In order to attend the inauguration, according to Axelbaum, CHS’ Close-Up group left their hotel very early in the morning.

“We had to leave at 4 a.m., catch the metro and we didn’t need to leave that early because not a lot of people were there, but the line was really, really long,” Axelbaum said. “We had to go through security and people at the inauguration were crying. They were crying out of fear and sadness.”

Many people across the nation have resisted accepting Trump as their president, and the students who travelled to Washington D.C. were no exception.

There was a large range of political views and differences that were apparent on the trip.

Out of the 14 students who attended the trip, three were Trump supporters, and the other 11 were not.

This called for very different perspectives from each person on the trip.

“Some of the people on the trip were very happy, and some of the people on the trip were not very happy,” Sehi said.

CHS students signed up to attend the Close-Up trip last April, so they did not know whose inauguration they were going to attend.

“I thought I was going to attend the inauguration of the first female president. That’s what I was hoping for,” Sehi said.

For Axelbaum, being at Trump’s inauguration was challenging.

“I always knew that he was going to be president, but seeing him stand there and be sworn in and give his speech really scared me,” Axelbaum said. “On inauguration day he started taking down things from the White House website; things about climate change and LGBT rights.”

While some CHS students were disappointed to attend the inauguration of President Trump, a few students were not. A few CHS students got VIP tickets to the inauguration as they are Trump supporters.

“A lot of [students] were very upset and very pissed off, and then [there were also] people that were fairly passionate for Trump,” senior Zachary Sorensen said. “As a fairly moderate person, I didn’t have a strong reaction either way. I didn’t have much of a personal [connection].”

Although the inauguration was hard for the students that had not supported Trump, the Women’s march in Washington D.C. the following day was more uplifting for the students.

“The best part was the last day, and that was the Women’s march, which was absolutely amazing,” Axelbaum said. “The few blocks that were being marched on were completely full. It was like a sea of people. People were sitting on top of street lamps and everyone was holding up really clever signs and chanting and everyone coming together, for one purpose — it was just so cool.”

For CHS senior Maddy Vaughn, being in DC for the Close-Up trip was an eye-opening experience.

“In Clayton we live in such a bubble, a very liberal bubble,” Vaughn said. “Going out to see the inauguration and being surrounded by that much hateful commentary, it made me really sad, and made me lose hope for the next four years. But the going back again to the Women’s march and seeing everyone being so supportive of each other gave me hope. Just seeing so many people come together, and being in Washington DC at the time was really impactful and we would stand up on this platform and you couldn’t even see the end of the street. I was just surrounded by hope.”

Though the Close-Up experience was very different for each person, CHS students were able to handle their differing political views.

“It was interesting to see the difference of opinions and see how people expressed themselves appropriately,” Aiello said.