Why I’m supporting Agatha: Amelia’s story
“My satisfaction with the establishment has waned significantly.”
#YouthVoice is a series of testimonials by millennials on their priorities, what inspires them in a political candidate, why they are (not) apathetic, and why they support Agatha Bacelar for US Congress CA-12, replacing Nancy Pelosi in 2021. Check out Amelia’s story here.
The email arrived at 6:02p on June 17th. It was straight to the point: college student Amelia wanted to volunteer for the Agatha For Congress campaign while she was home for the summer, before returning to the east coast to start her sophomore year.
Dear Miss Bacelar,
Thank you so much for running for Congress; you are so needed and such an inspiration. My name is Amelia and I am a rising sophomore and politics major. My satisfaction with the establishment — due to their complacency in neoliberal and imperialist policies and lack of real action on climate change, among other issues — has waned significantly. I’ve been so inspired by all of the young women primarying entrenched and established politicians this last year, and you are no exception.
Amelia is part of a growing trend reported in the New York Times, the first generation in which women are more likely than their male peers to be engaged in politics. After returning to school, Amelia shared with us her reflections on supporting my run for Congress, which I’m sharing below. Read and be inspired!
I was 17 in 2016.
This is only consequential because it means I largely learned about the norms of government and elected officials through reading reports of how the current president, his administration, and a complicit Congress broke them.
As a young person in this political climate, my politicization and political education occurred simultaneously. The tipping point was, indubitably, Trump’s election. It put this country’s bigotry, racism, and sexism out in the open, but Trump is a symptom, not a cause, of these evils. His audacious, unprofessional candidacy worked and it inspired millions of Americans: something must be seriously off in our country.
Since the painful morning of November 9, I have begun to learn about our deep-rooted problems — and have become more angry as I do so.
How can it be that record wealth inequality and racial disparities exist and yet taxes and social spending keep being cut? There’s no money for education or single-payer healthcare yet our military and jails are more robust than ever. How can it be that the federal government acknowledged the threat of the climate crisis in 1979 and yet did nothing, saying that the market would solve it?
Our economic system is predicated on a perpetually increasing consumption of natural resources and labor. We cannot trust the system or the politicians that got us here to get us out. As convenient as it would to be able to blame these problems on the political party that I’m least fond of, for the last generation, the leadership of both the Democratic and Republican parties has sided with corporations over the environment and workers.
That’s why I support Agatha. Unlike the status quo Democratic incumbent in CA-12 and her kin, Agatha understands the urgency of the problems at stake. She understands that if we don’t take action on climate now, there will be no other issues. She understands that poverty wages, racism, lack of opportunity, and incarceration are systemic problems, not individual failings.
Agatha gets it. And she thinks like I do and many young people do: we need real, substantive change across the democratic board. She’s a millennial. She’s a woman. While the current Congress has a record number of women, only 23.7% of lawmakers are women. As a young progressive woman, it matters to me to have public servants who champion the causes I do. But it also matters to me that our elected bodies reflect our population: a democracy without women lawmakers isn’t a democracy.
In this race, I don’t have to choose whether to support a candidate because of their ideology or their identity: we have Agatha. There is nothing more powerful or inspiring than a young woman running for office. The system wasn’t built for Agatha or people like her to be elected, but we can’t fix it until she’s — they’re — in Congress.
Through volunteering for her campaign, I’ve also gotten to know Agatha personally. She’s kind, intelligent, curious, and probably the best listener ever to run for office. Her bookshelf is overflowing. She also eats microwaved noodles with kale stalks when there aren’t any spoons and can play two recorders at once.
In Congress, I know that Agatha will bring about the kind of change that I and young people across the country crave. She would be one of the very few members of Congress that I genuinely trust is fighting for the environment, for people, and for democracy.
That’s why I’m supporting Agatha.
Amelia M.
Volunteer, Team Agatha
