But then President Trump was elected, and he nominated Betsy DeVos to be secretary of education.

Before DeVos, I hadn’t followed a single Cabinet nomination, which is probably true of most people. (Surveys regularly show that we aren’t particularly informed about our government.) At happy hour with my five girlfriends, we probably could have named two members of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, and the secretary of education was not one of them. I feel bad saying it, but it’s the truth: I simply didn’t think I needed to know. Why? Because I always had a sense that things would be okay, regardless of who was in charge; if Mitt Romney had won instead of Obama, things would have been fine.

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This was the first time I felt like things could not be okay. And I have found a political voice I didn’t know that I had — or that I even wanted to have.

I can’t pinpoint the moment things changed for me, but it started with Facebook. Like millions of people, I had never heard of DeVos, but she began popping up in my feed, with friends from all over the political spectrum posting about her. I clicked on a few news stories and read some basic facts about her. I’m not naive — I know politics can be corrupt, and there’s a lot going on behind the scenes. I knew there was controversy over some of the other Cabinet positions, that some of the nominees didn’t necessarily have public-sector experience, that some had links to people or events that didn’t look so good. But something about DeVos stuck out to me. The more I read about her, the more baffled I became.

I learned she is a billionaire who contributes a lot of money to the Republican Party. I learned she has never been in public schools, not as a student, a parent, an educator or an administrator. There was nothing in her biography that suggested to me she had anything to contribute to the millions of public school children and teachers who would be under her leadership. I couldn’t even say, “Well, at least her kids went to a public middle school.” She was as qualified to run the Department of Education as I was to run NASA. I don’t say this to insult her intelligence or her passion. She simply doesn’t have any experience. I didn’t know that someone so unqualified could even serve in a Cabinet position.

Of course major political donors enjoy access and influence in our government. But I figured that money could buy you an invite to a White House dinner, not a Cabinet job. Sure, have your time with the president. But you should not have the public school system, which educates 90 percent of the children in our country, depending on you.

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I don’t have kids, and I attended both private and public schools growing up. I’m hardly an expert on education policy. But I’ve always followed the news about my local school system, whether it was a new superintendent or budget cuts. I know how much public education matters, and so do my friends who are teachers or have children in school. A pregnant friend of mine told me she woke up crying in the middle of the night out of anxiety about what public school might look like for her child.

So I started to act. Yes, there are still cat photos on my Facebook feed, but it has mostly become a platform for sharing information and political articles, mostly about DeVos. I’ve sent things to people I said I would never talk to again, to friends I haven’t spoken to in years.

I also began calling and emailing my elected officials, something I’ve never done in my life. I picked up the phone and dialed Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). In a voice mail, I said my name and where I lived. I said I was calling about DeVos and stated my objection. I wasn’t at all nervous, partly because I knew that so many other people were calling. Knowing that I was part of a huge wave of people giving their opinions made me confident.

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I’ve seen it not only on social media but in real life: My family and friends never previously talked politics. Now we do all the time. Most of my girlfriends have transformed along with me. Normally we’d be talking about stupid videos or what Kristen Stewart did on “Saturday Night Live” or their kids or my cats or who knows. Now half of our texts or phone calls are about Trump and DeVos.

Of course I still have friends who don’t have much of an opinion and friends who are Trump supporters. If I can tell that a friend really doesn’t want to hear about DeVos, I don’t push it. I’ve had friends complain on social media about “all the negativity” and how they “don’t want to see this stuff” on Facebook. I understand — a few years ago, I also rolled my eyes at political posts. But now, hearing those complaints only makes me want to do it more. They can unfriend me if they want.

DeVos’s confirmation came as a huge blow. Part of me thought just one more person would step up to oppose her nomination. But the disappointment will only fuel my next steps. I know now that each person counts, and I will keep trying. This will not be the last time during this administration that I make a call to my senators. I plan on expanding my activism to other issues and becoming more engaged with local politics.

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At first when Trump was elected, I wanted to disengage. My attitude was: “I don’t want to know.” I didn’t want to watch CNN. I didn’t want to think it would be as bad as it is. Now I’m glued to all of it. I will be voting in every election going forward. I will educate myself as much as possible on the issues. This has been a huge wake-up call to me and to a lot of politically dormant people. We can’t just sit idly by and hope the government continues to function fine just because it has in the past. I might not be affected that much personally by what happens in Washington. But my neighbor, who helps me out and whom I care about, might be.