It’s 2008. The Jonas Brothers and Carrie Underwood are playing over the radio. “Iron Man” has just been released as the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Olympic spotlight lands on Michael Phelps as the swimmer wins gold in all eight of his events and shatters World Records in seven.
And, a few months ahead, the 2008 presidential election looms.
On Princeton’s campus, students prepare to vote for the first time as November draws near. An abundance of political issues guide their electoral decisions. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, for example, has just kicked off one of the most devastating financial crises since the Great Depression. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to weigh heavily on the minds of the American people.
In interviews with The Daily Princetonian, alumni who were on campus during the 2008 presidential election expressed experiencing substantial changes in life experiences, social media, and the way they now approach politics — yet, they all cast their support for Harris in the 2024 election. While the ‘Prince’ reached out to prominent independents and Republican supporters on campus back then, they either declined to comment or did not respond to multiple requests.
At the time, activism around larger, more sensitive issues, like the financial crisis and the ongoing wars, was rare. According to Aku Ammah-Tagoe ’11, now a search consultant at Isaacson, Miller, most students went to populated places like New York or Philadelphia for protests. The bulk of political discussion on campus was formal, taking place over campus publications such as the ‘Prince’ and the Tory and in debate societies like Whig and Clio.
“The prevailing attitude at the time was that Princeton was somewhat apolitical and less open to robust political debate than other college campuses,” Ammah-Tagoe said.
A 2004 ‘Prince’ article described political apathy as a “perennial complaint” at Princeton.
However, not all students were politically averse. Ammah-Tagoe recalled being invested in “the horse race aspect of politics,” keeping track of winning and losing candidates, strategies, and political trends from the physical newspapers that residential colleges delivered every day. She and her friends often sat together in the dining halls, reading The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other blogs.
Some students involved themselves in class government. One alumna, in particular, has been in the thick of politics since her first year on campus: Lindy Li ’12, a current political strategist and commentator. Li was elected class president at age 17 and held the position for all four years as a student — the first woman at the University to do so — and continued to serve as alumni class president. Li, a frequent guest on cable news and personality on X (formerly Twitter), recently garnered headlines for switching allegiances from a staunch Democrat to supporter of President Donald Trump.
Others aligned themselves with political parties or specific issues. Rob Weiss ’09, the president of the College Democrats at the time and a current associate at Latham and Watkins, recalled “a ton of enthusiasm and real engagement” despite Princeton’s reputation of being politically muted.
“There was a vibrant set of groups on campus that were doing everything from animal rights to the wars we were fighting overseas,” Weiss said. “Everybody had their own passions that they were really focused on.”
In particular, Weiss mobilized the College Democrats, donating to political causes, knocking on doors to get votes out, and registering new voters. According to Weiss, they visited over 20,000 doors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia. On campus, their membership nearly doubled and the College Democrats became the largest student group.
In addition to students, professors also participated in the wider political discussion, recalled Carly Guerra ’10, a family medicine resident in El Paso, Texas.
“Tons of professors from my time, like Cornel West, were always very vocal about how they felt politically, which I appreciate. I think that’s a really important thing to do, especially on a college campus,” Guerra said.
A lot has changed since 2008, one of the most significant societal transformations being the advent of social media. Digital platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have surpassed traditional media as the most popular avenue by which Americans get their news.
Elise Tremblay ’09, a pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, noted that this change deviated significantly from the main purposes of social media during her Princeton years. Facebook, she recalled, was mostly used to connect with friends she already knew and stay in touch with people from high school — far from the “echo chamber of political drama” it seems like today.
“I recognize — and this became starkly apparent with our recent election — that who you see on social media reinforces your narrative and what you think is going on,” Tremblay said. “I think it really helps to silo us in a way that is not necessarily productive.”
Guerra echoed the sentiment. In college, she remembered being able to read a newspaper, listen to a radio, or log onto social media and get reliable information without having to “wade through miles and miles of garbage.”
“[Social media] was a way [for] people to engage and share ideas, but it wasn’t this cesspool,” Guerra said. “Twitter is like a cesspool — you go on there, and it’s nothing but negativity [and] toxicity.”
However, not all 2008 voters view social media in a negative light. Jasmine Jeffers ’11, Managing Director of Institutional Giving at StoryCorps, said she spends a lot of time on TikTok and would classify herself as chronically online.
“It’s been interesting both to be exposed to new ways of thinking that I might not have considered based on my own lived experience,” Jeffers explained. “It’s been useful for putting my own experiences into context.”
Like other alumni, Li recalled social media having little influence in 2008 but acknowledged its central role in her career today. A longtime registered Democrat, she recently raised over $2 million for the Harris campaign and represented Philadelphia as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention. Over the past few years, many of her political opinions have played out on X.
However, days after President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024, Li re-emerged as a vocal critic of the Democratic Party, labeling the Harris campaign as a “$1 billion disaster” on Fox News. In January 2025, she was named to the Trump-Vance inaugural committee and expressed later on X that she is “excited and optimistic” to work with the new administration.
Reflecting on social media’s impact, Li noted its reach: “I just woke up the other day and I saw that Elon Musk pushed my story up to 13 million people,” she said. “He’s been tweeting my story to all of his followers, and his pack is retweeting it as well.”
Regardless, social media and the alumni’s broader life experiences have both affirmed and challenged their political beliefs, shaping their decisions four election cycles later.
“My political views are more nuanced, less aligned with any particular orthodoxy, and also, naturally, I’m more jaded,” Ammah-Tagoe said. “In some ways, that cynicism is helpful.”
As an undergraduate, Ammah-Tagoe interned with the House of Representatives. She later worked as a journalist, volunteered for political campaigns, got involved in more local activism, and also experienced periods with little political involvement. While sharing her support for Obama in 2008, she declined to comment on who she voted for in this election year.
“I believe much more deeply in the power of local elections, statewide elections, and also just in the ways that individuals can help each other and communities can bolster each other even when the government is actively attacking us,” she added.
Weiss shared a similar sentiment. Although most of the enthusiasm from his days with College Democrats followed the national elections, he recently spent time at the local level, seeing the policies there and “[talking] to people whose lives and livelihoods are directly impacted.”
Weiss expressed that his political beliefs have remained the same since his time at Princeton: He supported Obama in 2008 and voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. Among his friends and others that he had spoken to since the election, Weiss described feeling a “real sense of loss.”
“There’s this real sense of sorrow and fear that such a huge portion of the country was willing to overlook the really flawed human being that was selected, and accept, not only the things he said, but the things he’s done,” Weiss said.
Two other alumni also supported Harris this past November. Though leading different lives, they both acknowledged the impact of their personal life experiences on their political views.
Tremblay, who grew up in a Democratic household, gradually participated in political student groups and affirmed for herself the policies that her parents discussed. Rather than understanding why things matter on principle, she sought to understand why things mattered “in the real world.”
“In college, I would have said it’s important that every person has health insurance coverage because that’s a human right,” Tremblay said. “Now, as a doctor, a parent whose children have needed health care, and a person who’s had friends with terrible health crises, I have a more nuanced understanding of what that means.”
Jeffers, who voted for Obama in 2008 and “[blue] all the way down the ticket,” has consistently supported Democrats in every presidential election since — including Harris in 2024. Her career gave her first hand exposure to stark economic inequalities, reinforcing her political beliefs.
“I’m in a field where I spend a lot of time with billionaires and very poor people, and I see both incredible wealth and crushing poverty,” Jeffers said. “Seeing and knowing that we have the collective resources as a city to end those things, there’s no reason why, in my opinion, why we should have so many people sleeping on the streets when there’s so many vacant luxury apartments.”
Other alumni supported Harris far more reluctantly.
“I voted for Kamala, [but] she had not even just minor red flags — she had a whole thing that I did not agree with her, which is the genocide in Palestine,” Guerra said, citing the war in Gaza. “In today’s climate, all of the candidates felt like an unsettling situation.”
Furthermore, Guerra expressed that the presidential election system has also “backed [itself] into a corner” where only candidates from the two main political parties have a chance to win. Any voter who supports a third party, Guerra noted, “either feels, or is made to feel like they split a vote and ruined everything.”
“The last few elections have felt like this desperate clambering,” Guerra said. “I know this country has never been perfect, but the idea of democracy, sinking claws [in] and just trying to keep hold in desperation — it just feels more and more dramatic every time.”
For some alumni, their frustration with the political landscape led to more than reluctance for Harris — it powered a deeper shift in allegiance. Describing her transition from the Democratic Party to supporting President Trump, Li noted she was “disenchanted with what the Democratic Party has become.”
“Too much of the Party has lured so far to the left, and it’s not the party that we knew in 2008,” Li said. “It’s just not the party that we grew up with.”
She cited issues like immigration, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, open borders, and a lack of a clear party leader, and instead stated that she wanted to be a part of “a party that supports common sense.”
“I’m not going down with that ship,” Li said.
Despite the uncertain political climate, the alumni still offer a few words of wisdom for current students facing political discussion and engagement. Some advised students to involve themselves in politics and underlined the importance of community.
“Get involved, and once you do get involved, you have a greater sense of how much of a difference you can make,” Weiss said. “It takes away from the hopelessness and the sense that democracy is something that happens to us rather than something we participate in.”
“Think about the why and how of how you live your life, as opposed to just what is on your to-do list,” Jeffers added.
“I think the way that we fix this country is by valuing people who aren’t us,” Geurra said. “Don’t lose heart.”
Finally, some encouraged students to expand their perspectives on different viewpoints.
Tremblay invited students to improve the political dialogue: “Take the opportunity to engage in discourse with your peers that you don’t agree with.”
“Read widely, read broadly, listen to a variety of things. Don’t get too entrenched in any one viewpoint too quickly,” Ammah-Tagoe said.
Coco Gong is a head Features editor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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