Politics is depressing, repetitive, and signals the end of humanity as we know it. It’s dispiriting, ineffective, and thoroughly (un)American. It’s disingenuous, and phony, and frankly I can see why most people, especially young people, don’t care about it. 

It’s also what we have. We can sit here all day and watch Weekend Update, laugh at the stupidity of it all, and wish for a better system while the world burns outside, it won’t change the fact that we are the ones falling asleep at the wheel.

Our generation has a duty not simply to act as stewards, not just to wait our turn, but to rebuild the America that is failing us; that we are failing.

It’s not just us, not just kids, who are letting this happen. Our society is lethargic and tired from long years of fighting. The few political figures that excite us are not messiahs but demons that not only refuse to end but promise to add atop years of abuse by the political system in this country and beyond. They promise not to bring us together, but divide us further, on every side of every aisle. 

This year we will be presented not with a reckoning, but an ultimatum. On every ballot in every gym, library, and fire station we will be presented with a choice: to accept mediocrity, the first step on the muddy path to the top of the mountain, or sink to our knees and die here. But of course most of us won’t make that choice. Most won’t be able to. Many will want to with every fiber of their beings, to have a say in their future. But some simply won’t care enough to show up.

This year’s presidential election won’t be won in Texas, or California, or Ohio. It’ll be won in Georgia, and Pennsylvania, and Michigan. And even here it won’t be won’t be won in some lofty office up in Lansing, it’ll be won in the minds of young people, it’ll be won or lost by us.

Trump won Michigan in 2016. Biden won Michigan in 2020. The way Michigan voted in 2020 (by percentage breakdown) was closest of all the states to mirror the way the country voted as a whole. When Michigan got energized about abortion with Prop 3 in 2022, the country followed. When Michigan looks at itself in the mirror, it’s looking at America. 

When Michigan shows up the country listens. 

If Biden loses a couple thousand votes in Ann Arbor and Dearborn, that’s it. If he loses the Arab-American vote, that’s it. If he loses turnout among college-educated suburbanites and in Southeast Michigan, that’s it. That’s the election. That’s the presidency. Right here. In Michigan’s hands.

We have a megaphone. Trump won Michigan in 2016 by less than 10,000 votes. Our little hand-shaped state is a lot bigger than we think. Our hundred-something student votes are a lot bigger than we think.

So we have a duty. A duty to exercise every right with which we are endowed to fight against the terrible fate that awaits us. A duty to at least go down swinging. 

We have a duty to not throw away our votes, to not let apathy get to us, to not pretend that we don’t matter, because we do. Biden or Trump, I hate it as much as anyone, but those are your choices. Writing “ceasefire” on your ballot is the easy way out. Voting No Labels or Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the easy way out. Throwing away your vote is the easy way out. It’s not noble, it’s not bucking the establishment. The establishment won’t notice. Choose, not because you want to, but because this country needs you too.

If you won’t do it for yourself, if you won’t do it for all of us, do it for our founding fathers, for Susan B. Anthony, for Martin Luther King Jr. Do it for those who give their lives for our right to hear and be heard, to educate ourselves, to vote, knowing that we will never know their names.

So I demand nothing but for all of us to hold up our end of the bargain. 

Educate yourself. 

Participate. 

Vote.