Historic events took place in the summer of 2024. Between the high stakes in politics, and the ever changing climate, America has become a battleground for political outrage. In the few short months between May and August, the entire election has changed, causing worries among student voters.
By May 31, 2024, former President Donald Trump had become the first ever president to be indicted on felony charges. A New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges, where he had formed a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to an actress whom he had allegedly slept with.
“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial,” an angry Trump told reporters after leaving the courtroom, according to AP News. “The real verdict is going to be Nov. 5 by the people. They know what happened, and everyone knows what happened here.”
Later on June 11, 2024, President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was convicted of all three felonies in a federal gun trial. Prosecutors argued that the president’s son lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
The Biden-Trump presidential debate, held June 28, 2024, worried many Americans about what was next to come. During the debate, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump traded barbs and a variety of false and misleading information offering no official lead. Trump falsely represented the strength of the economy during his administration. Biden misrepresented the cost of insulin and overstated what Trump said about using disinfectant to address COVID.
“The debate between Trump and Biden was definitely out of the ordinary and a stretch from what politics should be,” Dakota Ridge senior Sara Strauss said.
On July 13, 2024, there was an attempted assassination of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. While he was speaking at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a gunman fired two shots from a nearby rooftop. One rally attendee, later identified as Corey Comperatore, was fatally struck by one of the shots. Two other attendees, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, left the rally seriously injured. Trump left the rally with a shot on his right ear.
“Violence against a candidate further demonstrates that politics is more and more polarizing with each passing day,” Strauss said. “We should show our opinions in the polls and not with our bullets.”
Later the FBI identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old man from Bethel Park, PA.
July 21, 2024, President Biden dropped out of the 2024 race. The unprecedented announcement, delivered less than four months before the election, immediately ended his campaign that both political parties view as the most consequential in generations.
“I am so glad that Biden dropped out,” DRHS senior Aleshai Vivanco Ramirez said. “He and Trump as the candidates, we were especially doomed…especially following the debate, it was clear neither of them are fit to run the country.”
With Biden intent on serving out the remainder of his term in office, he quickly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take on Trump and encouraged his party to unite behind her. Very quickly Harris became the Democratic pick, with the support of many Democratic delegates.
“I think Biden understood that he wasn’t what America needs to beat Trump, and he has passed the baton to someone with a fighting chance,” Strauss said.
The presidential picks have also chosen their vice presidents, with more Americans approving of Walz as a vice president pick compared to Vance, according to ABC News.
The Israel-Hamas war is still happening, and an Israeli airstrike recently killed 18 members of a family in Gaza as mediators hope for a cease-fire. U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said in her Democratic National Convention speech on Thursday that now was the time for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Israel’s war in Gaza.
With the outbreak of polio in Gaza, The World Health Organization expects to deliver 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine to the Gaza Strip as part of an emergency campaign.
