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Royce Gador

Mrs. Jackie Burr

English 2010, Period 2

7 March 2018

Powerless

Growing up I had a passive relationship with politics. I quite honestly did not have any

substantive political knowledge. I knew about the basic governmental structure that I learned in

school. The ​Schoolhouse Rock​ song with the singing piece of legislation teaching us about how

bills were formed, mnemonic devices to remember the Bill of Rights, and how the president was

elected every four years. These were the common paths we all took, but these larger than life

concepts did not have much significance to me. I was a child who felt so far removed from a

responsibility reserved for the adults. It was not until the summer of 2015 when a political tone

began to develop within myself as an election unlike any other began to unfold right before my

eyes.

That summer, the controversial statements that Donald Trump made about immigration

echoed throughout the world. I felt my stomach turn and my breathes getting heavy in my chest

as I felt outrage about the comments. As enraged as I was about what was said, I thought that

there was no possible way that Trump would have a chance in the upcoming election. I assumed

that he would get lost in the noise of the massive pool of career politicians. Looking back on it,

my assumptions could not have been more wrong.

The political turmoil and infighting within the Republican Party from the summer had

spilled over into the fall. The drama among this group with Trump coming from absolutely
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nowhere being at the center of all of it caught me off guard. I was following the primary season

rather closely. I had not been this politically engaged before in my life. The nature of this

election and the lines that were drawn very early on made it different. The issues at stake were

too important for me to ignore. My focus on the election had become a running joke among my

friend group. I remember walking home with my friend once and asked my friend in a panic

what time it was.

“It’s almost 3:00 o’clock,” she replied.

“I got to watch the news and see the coverage of the debate,” I quickly shouted.

It is slightly odd for a 15 year old to be rushing home to watch the afternoon news, but I

felt everyone tuning in to see this election play out. To an extent, I wanted to be engaged through

whatever small means possible. Over the next year, I was planted firmly in my living room

couch scrolling through the channels for every debate and news report. For the first time in my

life, I was interested in politics. Despite my first real engagement with politics being as

tumultuous as the 2016 election was, it was the unprecedented nature of it that made see the

importance of being engaged.

The final months of the general election felt like they would never come after the

lethargically paced year. The presidential debates came and gone with that heavy, frustrated

breathing at Trump’s clearly unprepared responses and Clinton’s robotic approach to public

appearances. I rolled my eyes in the comfort of my living room couch at two problematic

candidates. The scandal of the past year from Clinton’s emails to Trump’s inappropriate

misconduct came to crescendo on election night.

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I truly did not know what would happen that night. An apprehension settled in my lungs

as I sat at the edge of my dark leather couch. The news coverage had picked up that afternoon as

the reporters were out in the bitter, sharp air. The collection of icy, breathy air in front of their

mouths acted as a reminder of the past year. The news coverage rolled in like clock work. The

familiar breaking news banner written across the bottom and intense music that made my heart

race. What I had assumed were safe states for both candidates played out. New York went to

Clinton, Kentucky went for Trump, and the lists of those early states went as planned. Florida

was a razor thin race early in the day but when is it not competitive. The map filled out but when

states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania came reported in close I was taken aback.

The nature of the race had changed dramatically. I sat there motionless as this played out before

my eyes. The coverage went well into the night and the races became tight. I went to sleep that

night not knowing who would be the next president. I tossed and turned in anticipation of waking

up the next morning to see what the outcome would be.

I woke up to my notifications flooded with what happend. My jaw collapsed to the floor.

My eyes widened in their sockets at what I was reading. The anger that I felt from the previous

summer rushed through my body as I saw that Trump had won. I haphazardly threw on my

clothes and took conscious steps on the way to school that day. The chatter at school was

incredibly political that day. The disappointed, the frustrated, and the celebratory camps were

formed. Heated debates about who should have won echoed in the halls and the quiet

conversations in class. I remember walking into my math class that day and a bitter cold silence

settled in the air. My friends and I gathered around to work on our math homework but we were

too distracted by the big elephant in the room. We were outspoken in our frustration with the
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election as we typed furiously away on our laptops. Each person took their turn at the public

forum to make their anger heard.

“Trump is going to lead us to war,” one friend expressed.

“How could he possibly have won?” another concerned.

“Hillary won the popular vote!” echoed amongst all of us.

Our frustrations turned to fear and concern. What kind of world were we about to enter?

The world certainly responded vehemently to the outcome. I saw my friends post on social media

about being at the Women’s March and the commentary made on television about what went

wrong. In the aftermath of it all, I was just existing. I was not a part of this deeper engagement. I

look back wondering why I was not going out in a political protest. A part of me knew that I just

simply did not have the time or my parent’s approval to go out. Another facet of my political

identity felt that the election happened and the outcome was not going to change. What power

did I have to make a difference? I think the powerlessness is an underlying factor in the young

people around me. We become active in our community to protest a result only to retreat back to

our everyday lives. We make our voices loud only to find them powerless at the place we all

started. The narrative continues to be written without us and the disengagement quickly settles

in. I watched as the discussions became insular again. In an instant, I was back on the political

sidelines watching powerlessly both to my own fault and partly a bleak outlook toward the

future.