Seattle high school student bursts her liberal bubble
Sep 12, 2017, 6:55 AM | Updated: Sep 22, 2017, 9:50 am

Olivia Capestany - Photo courtesy of Olivia Capestany
Olivia Capestany, a senior at Roosevelt High School, recently decided there was something missing from her life: the perspective of people that disagreed with her politically.
鈥淩oosevelt is primarily a very liberal school,鈥 Capestany said in an interview with 770 KTTH鈥檚 Jason Rantz. 鈥淏asically because of where we live, it鈥檚 a very white, liberal area.鈥
The election of Donald Trump was hard on Capestany and many of her classmates and her journalism teacher realized it might be helpful for students to meet someone with conservative views. Her teacher invited a former Roosevelt student and active Trump supporter to speak to the class.
鈥淪o about half the class decided to leave, and half the class decided to stay,鈥 Capestany said. 鈥淚t was about a week or so after the election, so for a lot of people it was still a touchy issue.鈥
Capestany decided to stay for the discussion and detailed the experience in an essay published as part of the . At one point, though, she felt she needed to leave.
鈥淭here were times, and one moment, in particular, I talk about in the article, where I asked him about the Billy Bush tapes, the Access Hollywood tapes, and he said he remained loyal to Trump after that,鈥 Capestany said. 鈥淚 immediately had a reaction and I had to step out of the room.鈥
Although difficult, Capestany felt the experience was valuable.
鈥淚n that moment I realized how I鈥檇 been living in a liberal bubble,鈥 Capestany said. 鈥淚t, in a way, popped my bubble because I was like, there are people out there that think differently than I do, and I need to become a little more open minded to that fact.鈥
Capestany also spoke to liberal and conservative students for her Seattle Times essay. She realized there were some common misconceptions liberals believed about conservatives.
鈥淟iberal students, including me, had this idea that Republicans at our school were just dumb or intolerant,鈥 Capestany said. 鈥淯nless you have a conversation with someone you don鈥檛 know really what they鈥檙e about.鈥
So far, Capestany says she hasn鈥檛 gotten any backlash for the piece.
鈥淚 think that was also really telling and really showed me this is just a basic idea, just having a respectful conversation and listening, and that shouldn鈥檛 be controversial,鈥 Capestany said.