Why This College Student is All-In for Democrats This November

When  I was 13, right before the ill-fated Presidential election of 2016, I  heard conversations in the recess yard about how Hillary Clinton was trying to change America as we knew it and that Donald Trump, while a bit of a jerk, was the only way to stop her - “the lesser of two evils.” These sorts of comments were typical of the Catholic middle and high schools that I attended - isolated, conservative bubbles where most of my peers were happy to parrot their parents’ talking points and views, not giving politics a second thought. 

My situation was a bit different. I closely watched the Presidential debates and became increasingly aware of how this process could affect my life and my future. As a gay teen coming out in the context of a southern, Catholic, private school, I didn’t exactly have the choice to ignore Donald Trump’s politics or his policy platform.  What Trump and the platform of the Republican party made clear was the desire to outlaw same-sex marriage and to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would aid them in that mission. Now, nearly six years later, the fear I felt about those policies may soon be a reality. The Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Roe v Wade puts in jeopardy other rulings based on rights of privacy, like the decision that the precedent in Obergefell v Hodges, the case that legalized gay marriage at a federal level. 

Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the Dobbs case shows us their agenda in plain terms.  This conservative majority isn’t satisfied with simply taking away the right to a safe and legal abortion, denying women and girls rights over their own bodies.  They seek to abolish other rights, including the right to certain forms of contraception and medication used for much more than just preventing unwanted pregnancy and the right to same-sex marriage.  Americans don’t want the government in their bedrooms. 

Nor does my generation of voters.  We should be worrying about things like what classes we want to take, what my friends and I are doing this weekend, and how we are going to balance a busy schedule of classes, work, and extracurriculars, not whether or not we will have the  right to marry whom we chose, whether those who can become pregnant are forced to bring an unwanted pregnancy to term, or whether our college campus will be the next site of a tragic mass shooting thanks to Congress’ failure to adequately address the epidemic of gun violence in America. 

This is why I’m voting for Democrats.  Those who make up the Democratic Party share my interests as a college student and have policies that will positively impact my future and address the problems of today.  The Republican Party, on the other hand, seems to have no plan for the future, just a nostalgia for a fictional past. 

We Need Representation that Cares About the Future!  Vote for Democrats Up and Down the Ballot!