YOUNG GUNS MARCH TO THE MIDTERMS

Before I give you my two cents (in approximately two minutes) as to why David Hogg, Emma González, Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin, Alex Wind, and the rest of their gang of superkids have exactly the right stuff to turn red districts blue in November, I need to give you a depressing statistic to help explain my optimism about changing the political landscape.

In the 2014 midterm election, according to TIME, only 14% of eligible voters between the age of 18 and 20 bothered to go to the polls to cast a vote. They must not have been chomping at the bit to exercise their brand new democratic privilege.

These post-Millennials left it to every other voter group to decide which representatives should continue to make decisions (or continue to avoid making decisions) on budget priorities, foreign wars, personal freedoms, saving the environment, reversing the soaring national debt, and passing sane gun laws.

One common explanation for the 86% who decided to stay home and play video games instead of going to the polls goes like this:

A few decades ago, young people got married and started families in their early twenties. Today, the tendency is for them to get married and start families in their thirties. So, it takes having to deal with taxes, mortgages, and raising and educating their children to make them feel they have something tangible at stake when it comes to electing their leaders.

If that feeling of having nothing tangible at stake was the reality, then that reality changed after 6 minutes and 20 seconds of murder.

On February 14, 2018, an all too common event took place when 17 students were shot to death by a deranged classmate at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida – just another case of murder in the classrooms of America.

But then, in the immediate aftermath of this entirely unextraordinary mass school shooting, something extraordinary happened. New leaders stepped from the wreckage and introduced themselves.

They handled interviews with ease and honesty. They said that they had no use for the usual chorus of “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” They announced that they would be taking matters into their own hands, and they knew they had the power to deliver on that promise.

Now, we know too.

They are fluent in the language of social media and are connected nationwide to a largely untapped army of eligible and soon to be eligible voters who are all involuntary members of the post-Columbine generation.

I had intended to use this space to share with you my admiration of the sound strategies supporting their mission – organizing the school walkout, cementing their bond with students in cities and towns across the country; organizing the March that took place in Washington and in 800 other locations that showed off the discipline and organizational skills of student leaders from every participating school.

I had intended to point out the lessons wisely learned from the Women’s March. Just as the women knew that their protest could not be limited to white suburban women, but had to include black, Hispanic, and Muslim women, the students knew that their movement could not be mostly about white suburban kids. Their platform needed to include inner city students, who lived where gun deaths earned little if any national attention.

I wanted to applaud them for continuing to build on their successes and sustaining their momentum. Parkland student leaders are now in the midst of two major bus tours. One is covering all 27 districts in the state of Florida. The other is making 75 stops in 20 states. They are registering voters who will tip elections.

I wanted to make this post all about strategy, execution, and measurable progress, in order to reassure myself and you that there will be a critical Victory on November 6^th.

Instead, I will use the remainder of my time to recall the pure poetry of one of the most amazing speeches I have ever heard:

“6 minutes and 20 seconds with an AR-15, and my friend, Carmen would never complain to me about piano practice.

Aaron Feis would never call Kyra Miss Sunshine,

Alex Schachter would never walk into school with his brother Ryan,

Scott Beigel would never joke around with Cameron at camp,

Helena Ramsay would never hang around after school with Max,

Gina Montalto would never wave to her friend Liam at lunch,

Joaquin Oliver would never play basketball with Sam or Dylan.

Alaina Petty would never,

Cara Loughren would never,

Chris Hixon would never,

Luke Hoyer would never,

Martin Duque Anguiano would never,

Peter Wang would never,

Alyssa Alhadeff would never,

Jamie Guttenberg would never,

Jamie Pollack would never.”

Emma González brought each of her fallen classmates back to life for barely a second, just long enough to sear their images into the minds and hearts of millions of high school students, college students, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers, and anyone else held captive by her gut-wrenching words.

She could not possibly follow-up that magic trick with one even more mesmerizing, but as you know, that is exactly what she did.

She held her place on stage and on camera, fought back tears, and remained silent for an excruciating 4 minutes and 26 seconds.

It was the silence heard around the world.

It was the silence that, along with the silence of cowardly lawmakers, will help cost Republicans the United States House of Representatives.

You can take that to the bank.