At 18, Not Everyone Feels Helpless. In November 2016, I Did.
When I was a freshman in high school, I took a class that changed my outlook. General Paper, what I thought would be a writing workshop, was actually a current events class. We were forced to take notes on the news every night for the entire school year. It was late 2013, and the world had just learned Edward Snowden’s name. I got sucked into national politics. I followed every move of the Obama administration.
I got to know the most prominent players like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell. Their political storylines were a whole new world of drama, filibusters, and intrigue, stories that would impact millions of lives, present and future.
When I took that class, I no longer cared only about pop music and Harry Potter. Absorbing information on world affairs became a priority. I inhaled Time magazine and The Nation. My family had always been politically active: my mother and grandmother had always discussed politics over dinner and my grandfather was the president of the Lee County, Florida Democrats until he died when I was 13. Now I could join in on a conversation about the government shutdown over Obamacare or the Russian annexation of Crimea.
On April 12, 2015, one of my heroes, Hillary Clinton, announced she was running for president, and I was overjoyed. I thought, in about 18 months, we would be calling her ‘Madame President.’
Then came June 16, 2015: Donald J. Trump, former reality TV star, descended a golden escalator and announced his run for president. At first, I laughed. At first, I was skeptical. Like others, I thought he could never win. But that changed as his position in the polls began to skyrocket; I became worried. I, at 16 and, having no real way to contribute to politics, scribbled frantic poems about the tempestuous political climate as an outlet for my shock and rage. I wrote one called “No, Not Trump, Not Ever,” stolen from a Washington Post editorial headline, with stanzas like:
“Ballot boxes have morphed into bullhorns and/The chasm between “The United” has never been/So deep./The man behind it smirks, shrugs, shouts,/Convinces himself it’s all going to be great again;/An America reduced to percentages,/Paper signs raised defiantly in the air,/Screams and whispers/Waiting to erupt./Calamity is never predicted./(Besides,/Everything/Is/Political.)”
I wept for a whole day on November 9, 2016, my dreams of a first woman president shattered. Two days later, on my 18th birthday, I resolved to vote in every single election, a promise I have kept for four years. This time around, I know I won’t feel as powerless this time, now that I know that I’ll be voting.
Most moderate Democrats frequently lose in scarlet Lee County, and it’s difficult to keep spirits up. Driving through my southwest Florida neighborhood is a constant reminder that I am an outsider in my own hometown: I see Trump flags flapping in the wind, yard signs stuck in emerald grass, and peeling bumper stickers galore, and I can’t help but wonder if the Trump voters are morally bankrupt. How can they ignore the sexism, the ableism, the racism, the lies? Will they realize that their facts are really falsehoods?
Candidates, pundits and strategists have tried to convince me that the 2020 presidential election is the most significant election of our lifetime, but I know that this is false; the most important one was the 2016 election, and we failed. It’s impossible to know, but under a second Clinton administration, I could have felt good about being an American. I know what’s at stake for me for this election: feeling safe in public even though I am a high-risk candidate for COVID-19, feeling secure as a student in an era of school shootings, not having to feel gripped with anxiety when I wonder if my city will be next as the riots spread across the country, no longer having to wonder if life would be different under a president who cares about climate change.
Now, less than two months until the election, I know the future of democracy is at stake. This election does not simply mean a winner and a loser: it is a battle for the soul of our nation. It seems fitting that this year marks a century since women have had the right to vote, so I’ll do what they fought for: march into a polling station and check a box.
