BY TONY CHEONG: My 10-year-old niece got her first cell phone.<\/p>\n

She texts me incessantly.<\/p>\n

Mostly emojis.<\/p>\n

I’d prefer she write complete sentences.<\/p>\n

Toward that end, I’ve been talking – texting – politics with her.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump was in Orange County last week so we started with him. Besides, he and Hillary were the only presidential candidates she knew of at first.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

BY TONY CHEONG: My 10-year-old niece got her first cell phone.<\/p>\n

She texts me incessantly.<\/p>\n

Mostly emojis.<\/p>\n

I’d prefer she write complete sentences.<\/p>\n

Toward that end, I’ve been talking – texting – politics with her.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump was in Orange County last week so we started with him. Besides, he and Hillary were the only presidential candidates she knew of at first.<\/p>\n

Now she knows all five. She knows who’s a Republican and who’s  a Democrat. Policy? She’s a two-issue kid: she’s all for free college — free anything, really — and completely against all-gender bathrooms.<\/p>\n

“Who’s going to pay for your free college?” I texted.<\/p>\n

“Berny,” she texted back.<\/p>\n

She thinks “Berny” is a nice old man. Clearly, she thinks he's a trillionaire, as well.<\/p>\n

Moving on, she likes Hillary because she’s a girl, although she also thinks the former first lady comes off as a smarty pants.<\/p>\n

“Do you trust her?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, cuz she’s a girl. But I trust Miss Lanai more.”<\/p>\n

“Who’s Miss Lanai?” I asked.<\/p>\n

“My teacher. Can she run for president?”<\/p>\n

Oh, back to Trump. Her response was curt: “Yuk.”<\/p>\n

What about Kasich?<\/p>\n

She texted an emoji of a sleepy cat.<\/p>\n

She likes Ted Cruz because she learned that he’s against all-gender bathrooms. She doesn’t fully understand the nuances of the transgender issue; she just doesn’t want to share a bathroom with boys. Also, she really, really likes Heidi Cruz.<\/p>\n

“She’s pretty and nice.”<\/p>\n

It’s that girl thing again.<\/p>\n

Speaking of girl power, maybe Miss Lanai should run in 2024, I suggested.<\/p>\n

“I’ll be her champion manager,” my niece texted.<\/p>\n

“Campaign manager,” I corrected.<\/p>\n

In return, I got an emoji of a pumpkin. That’s her way of making fun of Trump.<\/p>\n

“Not nice,” I texted.<\/p>\n

Uh oh. More emojis appear on my screen, and I’m sorry: I just don ‘t speak this language of hers…<\/p>\n

Do you have a comment, question or news tip for Tony? Email her at tonyontown@yahoo.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY TONY CHEONG: My 10-year-old niece got her first cell phone. She texts me incessantly. Mostly emojis. I’d prefer she write complete sentences. Toward that end, I’ve been talking – texting – politics with her. Donald Trump was in Orange County last week so we started with him. Besides, he and Hillary were the only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5308],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4709,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions\/4709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocn.archives.ocnnewspapers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}