Not enough indictments

On Aug. 14, former President Donald Trump was indicted on felony charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia. His terrible tweets have also come to light, totaling his indictments to 91 felony counts. We asked how his followers feel about his history and how it will affect his run for presidency in 2024.

“I honestly don’t care about his criminal history. We should be keeping politicians’ personal lives out of our decisions when electing who’s president. It’s not like it’s actually going to affect his presidency,” said Ignoe Rant ’25.

While some have moderate views, others encourage his criminal behavior, claiming his actions are heroic and stand for all Americans. 

“The election was clearly stolen, and the common people can’t see it,” said Terr Oresst ’27. “Trump is just standing up for what’s right, and if he needs more indictments to do that, then I 100% support it.”

Trump then got his mugshot taken—the first US President to ever receive one. He stated that it was, in fact, beneficial to get his mugshot since any press is good press. However, he still had to pay $200,000 to get on bail and denied all felony counts. Trump then felt the need to give his followers an important message following his arrest. 

“As Americans, we have the right to investigate what happened during the 2020 election,” said Trump. “Obviously, trying to invalidate election results and forging documents is a part of democracy.” 

They’re watching

With the start of the 2023-24 school year, there have been many new changes at West. For example, administration has cracked down on parking regulations. As such, there’s a possibility that cars parked in the bus lane can be towed.

“I’ve been parking in the bus lane so I can get to class as soon as I can,” said Eage Rtolern ’24. “It was really efficient, but because of the new rule, it now takes me five more minutes to get to class.”

Another change is that the West High administration will be watching students from security cameras to figure out who’s leaving trash behind at lunch. While there was considerably less trash at first, students got creative about hiding their trash and started covering the cameras with food. 

“My friends and I were just chilling under the staircase, finishing up our lunch when the cameras suddenly started blinking,” said Brek Inruels ’26. “The alarms started going off too, but we were able to stop it after we covered the cameras with baloney.”

The administration implemented similar measures in the lunchroom and saw promising results there. Many students fear the consequences they’ll receive and have been following the rules put in place. Despite that, the number of students hiding around the school to eat lunch has increased. Their attempts have not been successful.

“Remember that we’re always watching,” said Principal Mitch Gross. “We always know what you’re doing.”

Strange spirit week

With Homecoming just gone by, we reviewed some Spirit Week themes for each day. With the increasingly unique themes, students have come up with interesting interpretations. 

“The Spirit Week poster said dress as your type, but I thought they meant your font type,” said Vera Litral ‘24. “My favorite font is Times New Roman so I dressed up as Caesar from the Roman Empire in 49 B.C. I got many weird looks that day.”

During Dress As Your Type Day, the numerous interpretations, one of which included a student bringing in their tractor to the school parking lot after claiming that their type of vehicle is a tractor, forced the school to end the spirit day early. While that day was memorable for many students, others found it fun to dress up, or in the case of Barbie Day, doll up. 

“It was Barbie Day and I just knew I had to look like a Barbie doll,” said Dedi Cattid ’27. “It was really hard to take notes when I held my hands in Barbie position all day, but it was so worth it.”

There were many Barbies and Kens roaming the halls, and the whole school was divided into two sections: BarbieLand and the Mojo Dojo Casa House. This presented difficulties for the school’s functionality, since the two groups kept disagreeing about who should have control over parts of the school. Finally, the day came to an end, and Spirit Week resolved back to its usual themes. 

“I absolutely loved the themes this year, but I think we should stick with simpler ideas,” said Cat Oius ’25. “We wouldn’t want school to be discontinued or worse, homecoming getting canceled.” 

A national spectacle

On Aug. 23, the first Republican Primary Debate of the year opened on Fox News. There were numerous candidates in attendance, including former Vice President Mike Pence, Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Opinions clashed, leaving West students intrigued with where the debate would lead. 

“The fact that Vivek Ramaswamy raised his hand first when asked if he would support Trump if he was the party’s nominee says a lot about his character,” said Denn Se ’27. “Despite Trump’s felony conviction, he’s still the best choice, but Vivek is a close second.”

In fact, almost everyone in the debate raised their hand except former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, with former Gov. Chris Christie later putting his hand down as well. While some students found the debate useful, not everyone agreed on whether the candidates would get their vote. 

“The whole debate was a mess, and everyone was talking over each other,” said Bai Essed ’25. “I hope the next debate goes better so I can actually learn more about their views on each topic.” 

There will be more debates in the future from the Republican Party where people can understand their views better and show us who the potential GOP nominee might be for the Republican party, but at this point, there is no way to tell who it will be. 

Trump also had an interview with Tucker Carlson, which was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that same day. There, he talked about his decision to skip the debate and how he’s leading for the Republican GOP nominee. 

“You see, the polls have come out, and I’m leading by 50-60 points,” said Trump. “And some of the candidates’ points are in the one’s digits. Like, do I really want to sit there for two hours and get harassed by someone who shouldn’t even be running for president?”