No sure what to say when someone says I’m not going to vote–my vote doesn’t count–all politicians are the same?
A message to all of us–& Gen Z:
My name is Yulissa. I’m 26. I grew up in Hammond, daughter of Mexican immigrants who worked themselves to the bone so I could stand here today. Oldest daughter. First one to figure out the paperwork, translate at appointments, explain to my parents what was happening to their country too.
And I’m standing here pissed.
Let me tell you what’s happening right now, not what they want you to see on the news. Right now, ICE is running through communities that look like mine. Dragging people out of their homes. People with jobs, kids, lives. My people. Our people. And the federal government is funding it, expanding it, and calling it “safety.”
Safety for who?
Meanwhile, right here. Right here in Northwest Indiana, BP is still polluting Lake Michigan. NIPSCO is jacking up our bills while we freeze. They’re trying to drop data centers on top of working-class neighborhoods that already don’t have clean air. And the people making those decisions?
They don’t live here. They never did.
We are being sold out at every level. National. State. Local. And the people in power are counting on us not noticing.
Oh, and real quick. For the people outside this crowd. The ones recording us right now to post with a laughing emoji. The ones saying “we don’t have a king, we have a president, what are y’all even protesting?”
Bestie.
A king doesn’t need a crown to act like one.
A king ignores the law when it’s inconvenient. A king surrounds himself with yes-men and fires anyone who tells him the truth. A king uses fear to control people. A king moves money to his friends while everyone else struggles. A king thinks he is the country.
Sound familiar?
The title is President. The behavior is monarch. And the fact that you can’t see the difference, or worse, you can and you’re fine with it, says everything.
We are not confused about the title. We are alarmed by the pattern.
And no, I don’t expect you to get it immediately. It took a lot of y’all three years to figure out that Twitter which is now X was just a guy’s ego project too.
But real ones, the people who actually read the Constitution y’all love to wave around, know that this country was built specifically to prevent one person from having unchecked power.
No kings. That’s not a metaphor. That’s the founding principle.
So if you’re mad at this movement, you’re mad at the Declaration of Independence.
Take that up with the Founding Fathers. We’ll wait.
And now I need to talk to my generation. Gen Z, I love you. But some of y’all need to hear this.
You will repost a Palestine infographic at 2am and not vote in a midterm. You will tweet about DEI being gutted and then say “both parties are the same” like that’s a personality. You will watch this country dismantle itself and say you’re “too tired” or “my vote doesn’t matter.”
It does matter. And you know it does. That’s why it hurts.
And I get it, politics feels like something that happens to us, not with us. It feels like old people in suits making decisions in rooms we were never invited into.
But here’s what nobody tells you…
You can walk into those rooms.
Your city council meets every month. Your school board meets every month. Your township trustee, your county commissioners, your zoning boards, all of them. Open to the public. Free to attend. And half the time? There’s maybe fifteen people in that room making decisions that affect thousands.
I know. I know, it sounds boring. It can be long. Sometimes it’s just people arguing about parking lots for two hours.
But that’s also where they approved the data center. That’s where they greenlit the pipeline. That’s where they decided which neighborhoods get resources and which ones don’t. That’s where it starts, before it ever makes the news. Before anyone’s outraged. Before it’s too late to stop it.
They are making decisions about your air, your water, your rent, your schools, and they are doing it in quiet rooms because they are betting you won’t show up.
Prove them wrong.
Especially my young people. Especially my Black, Latino, Asian, middle eastern, Indigenous, mixed, all of us who have been told our whole lives that politics isn’t for us. That we don’t understand it. That we should leave it to the “experts.”
The experts are the ones who got us here.
We need us in those rooms. Not just voting every four years. Not just posting. Actually showing up. Asking questions. Speaking during public comment. Running for seats on those boards. Being the people who make the decisions instead of the people who just live with them.
This is how change actually works. Not just the big moments. The boring Tuesday night meetings too.
I’m not here to baby you. I’m here because I need you awake. Not performatively woke. Actually awake. And actually present.
We are tired of watching politicians argue on social media while our families can’t afford basic healthcare.
We are tired of being told to “wait your turn” in a system that was never built for us.
We are tired of Israel getting billions of our tax dollars, our tax dollars, while Gaza is being bombed into rubble and AIPAC writes the checks that keep our representatives silent.
We see the DEI programs getting gutted, not because they “didn’t work” but because equality felt like a threat to people who are used to being the only ones in the room.
We know what this is. This is not policy. This is power. And they are consolidating it as fast as they can before we realize what we lost.
And if you’re out here today holding a counter sign, if you genuinely believe that stripping rights, terrorizing immigrants, and defunding protections makes this country great, then look me in the eyes and tell me that. Because I’m not going anywhere.
But here’s the truth,
We are the most informed, most connected, most aware generation this country has ever produced. We grew up watching the system fail in real time and we still showed up. We still showed up.
And we are not just protesters. We are future city council members. Future school board members. Future commissioners. Future everything. The seats at the table that were never meant for us? We’re pulling up chairs whether they like it or not.
That matters. You matter, not as a hashtag, not as a demographic. As a person. As a neighbor. As someone whose life is directly on the line.
And when we move together, not perfectly, not politely, but together, they cannot stop us. They know it. That’s why they’re scared.
So here’s what I’m asking. Not begging. Asking.
Register to vote, today, if you haven’t. Show up in November like your family’s life depends on it, because for a lot of us, it does.
And then don’t stop there.
Find out when your city council meets. Go. Bring a friend. Speak during public comment even if your voice shakes. Run for something. Anything. Because the future isn’t just built at the ballot box, it’s built in those quiet rooms on Tuesday nights that nobody thinks to show up to.
Until now.
They are counting on you to go home and forget. Don’t forget. No kings. No silence. No more.
