Coming of Age in the Era of Donald Trump, and Finding Hope in Hopeless Times Eloise Smith Follow Jan 29 · 3 min read

Every generation has its defining political moment. That big event that inspired people to enter into government, activism, and political awareness. For my parents’ generation, it was Watergate and Vietnam, for the generation before them it was the Civil Rights movement. For the generation before mine, it was Al Gore and the election of 2000. For my generation, it will be Donald Trump.

The first election I can remember was the 2016 election. My mom made me go to bed just as it was becoming clear that Hillary Clinton would not be the president. I woke up the next morning and immediately googled the election results. I don’t think I fully understood the gravity of the situation, but I remember my stomach sinking as I realized that Donald Trump really would be the next President of the United States. The kitchen was oddly quiet that morning, my parents both in shock.

That’s when I started following the news. I had to know what was happening, what our new president was doing. Donald Trump was the first politician, the first president, I ever paid attention to, and because I had no frame of reference, the everyday scandals and daily political disasters that would have ended another president’s career in a heartbeat became normal to me. The lying and the insults and the secret illegal affairs were just a part of everyday politics to me. Of course a president would elicit foreign aid to help his reelection, that’s what they all do. Of course a president would fire his own prosecutor and lie about investigations and political rivals, that’s what you do when you have power like that. It wasn’t until I would see how the media, and my parents reacted to the scandals, that I understood the gravity of them.

I wasn’t expecting to get involved in the 2020 election. Why would I? I couldn’t vote, there wasn’t much I could do. But over the course of the last year, Pete Buttigieg has become my guy. It is 6 days before the Iowa caucuses as I write this. I’m more invested in this race than I have been in anything else in my life. I’ve been to trainings. I’ve seen him in person. I’ve read his book multiple times. I plan on volunteering for his campaign. But I’m not just involved, and I don’t just care because I think he has great policies, or even because I think he can win. I care because he has taught me what a politician can be. He is everything our country needs in a president right now. He is everything our country needs in a politician right now. He helped me see the good in politics. I finally understand that quote of his, that struck me when I first heard it. “Politics at its worst is ugly, but politics at its best is magnificent. Because it’s not just about policy. It is soulcraft, and it is moral.” Politics really is beautiful, when there are good politicians around to bring change and help people. Pete Buttigieg gives me the energy to care, the energy to feel joy in this whole process. He brought me hope. I was wallowing in despair and hopelessness, and without me even fully realizing, he pulled me out of that place, and showed me what America could be. Let’s go call our country to its highest values, let’s find those people wallowing in their own hopelessness and show them what hope can do. Let’s elect Pete Buttigieg president and show another generation of kids what politics can do.