Pass the Mic: Our Political Obligations
Image Credit: Charlie Hoang; Workers Over Billionaires Protest in Fremont
By: Charlie Hoang
In light of recent political uproar, I have grappled with indignation toward my generation. I resent those who are flimsy, who pick and choose which victims deserve commemoration and empathy. Above all, I resent myself for my own idleness. But what sets me apart from them?
I was wandering around the Workers’ protest, sign in hand, friend by my side, when we spotted her. A wonderful lady dressed in tie-dye, equipped with a megaphone. She thanked my friend and me for showing up as youths, and promptly asked, ‘Do you want the microphone?’
We declined. But the question, and others similar, have swarmed my mind since then. I want to answer to myself and her:
Do I deserve the microphone?
For those two and a half transitory months between President Trump’s election win and inauguration, I tried to deny our political future by freezing my mindset in the previous administration. In the three months leading up to the election, when Kamala Harris ran her campaign, I felt coddled by the internet. I was convinced that we were in this together, that this nebulous we (the echo chamber of online leftists) would surmount the mammoth of middle-aged+ fiscal voters, and put a democratic woman into office after a weak run.
The past 10 months have been a flurry: BIG BREAKING NEWS, Government issues 200 Executive Orders, Government Detains and Deports Thousands, Government Taxes All Goods from Everywhere, Government Cuts Trillions in Taxes to the Ultra Rich, Government Creates Flashy Departments and Million-dollar Ballrooms, Government Cuts Medical Research Funding, Government Reprimands Educational Institutions for Political Students, Government Erases History.
We’re starting to forget. And I am not the same person I was 10 months ago. I fear the future for endless reasons and find myself in a cycle; I fear, cower, settle, realize, and fear, ad infinitum. We are inundated with news and sensation. It stews and ferments in us until it eventually oozes out as waste. Events flash by faster, and we can hardly get a breath in before the next scandal whisks us away.
“Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
In addition to these unrelenting occurrences, which, in their vapid abuse toward the mind impress an apathy upon us, there is nothing more discouraging than political discourse with chronic, party-loyal deniers. While those of us who care are imbued with despair, and others are destroyed directly by the Administration, its supporters will stare you in the face and deny. In all, you can’t help but feel helpless; you can’t argue with an unmovable force and an impending future.
But I recognize the privilege that allows me to wallow. At the very least, it is not right to see suffering and do nothing. I imagine that sometime in the future, if humanity is popular again, generations will ask: “Why did no one do anything?” And all of us will be speechless. Admittedly, I am speechless now. I am loud and impassioned within the walls of my home, before my audience of close friends and family. But if you’d ask me to take the microphone, I’d reveal myself a coward.
Upon reflection, I think my cowardice stems from the broader culture of my cohort’s political discourse. For your point to be worth proving, you must deliver it with eloquence and composition, with unending knowledge and background. Above all, you must annihilate your opponent, because to us, that’s the only indication of correctness. It’s not enough to see injustice and call it for what it is, because there will always be more required of you. Ultimately, you feel as if you’re throwing yourself at a wall of irreparable devotees and privileged moderates that never gives.
So, when I find myself fresh with frustration, unable to describe what it feels like to be young, and losing the hope that once lit your world, everything feels pointless. And I see the people around me, my peers, and it’s unclear to me what they’re thinking, if they even are. History is the voice begging us (the obligated witnesses) to do something, but it feels impossible when there is no us.
There is a division amongst bystanders, and it produces no action. It lends itself to two sides of the same vain coin.
“By lack of understanding they remained sane.”
The Cynics
The cynics are the bane of my existence. They are my peers and likely the majority of young people. They are teenagers stuck in the past, with no regard for the future. In a world where global events are broadcast and shot like lightning to our phones, laptops, and TVs, they would rather tailor their personal algorithms to frivolous, brain-numbing media. Why bother when our current administration creates equally brain-numbing realities?
They live by the mantra, “It’s not that deep.” It continues to absolve them of thinking. Behind every wave of performative activism online, there is a tsunami of sardonic influence that mistakes caring for insincerity and tragedy for nothing. The cynics depress the youthful passion among their peers and replace it with coolness toward blazing wildfires. You will see crimson glow in the reflection of their glazed irises, and they will mock you for noticing.
The Critics
They are, in theory, the “radical left,” the table-flippers and system adversaries. The ones who denounce peaceful protests and spineless liberals, and yet have the hardest time putting their labor where their mouth is. They want nothing less than revolution and yet refuse to be on the forefront of it, because being a backseat driver is somehow more impactful than sincere demonstration. I would find myself encouraging them if they weren’t hypocrites—proponents of the all-or-nothing change that must happen, but never does.
Admittedly, I am both and none. I am conflicted and lost. I am mourning the loss of respectable politics, the value of education, the freedom for everyone to say that two plus two equals four, and the ability to say that mass eradication of an ethnic group is genocide without punishment. I am mourning the loss of a normalcy that never existed for others. In my bereavement, I am still.
I am no better or worse than the groups I distinguished myself. We are all, in effect, useless. Inaction is inaction regardless of who is not acting.
I say this not to disparage these groups, as they consist of my friends and family, but to affirm a solidarity. Boundless walls are running between us, manifesting in every difference we fortify. Despite our inclination toward division, we should know: we are bonded by our time, education, age, and most importantly, the prospect of change.
Change is the bigger picture that shrinks against a unified us. In our “hearts and bellies and muscles,” we hold “the power that would one day overturn the world.”
If you’d like to stay informed, here are news outlets to start with:
Bonus: If you are an Ohlone student with access to your ohlone.edu email account, you get free access to The New York Times!
News that I Referenced:
U.S. deportation tracker: Counting arrests, deportations (NBC)
The Latest on “Alligator Alcatraz” (CBS)
Trump’s $4.9 trillion tax plan targets Medicaid to offset costs (AP news)
Judge allows Trump to cut more than $1bn in National Science Foundation grants (The Guardian)
Supreme Court lets Trump cut $783 million of health research funding amid anti-DEI push (PBS)
White House Ballroom Construction to Begin (whitehouse.gov)
UC Berkeley shares information on dozens of students, staff with Trump administration (reuters)
There are more child amputees in Gaza than anywhere else in the world (The Guardian)
Israel pounds Gaza City, killing 49 and displacing 6,000 in a single day
Activists say Gaza aid boat set to test Israel’s blockade attacked by drone in Tunisia (CBS)
Quote Citation:
Orwell, G. (2021). Nineteen Eighty-Four. Penguin Classics.
A very critical assessment of our current state of affairs and introspection. As they say: a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. And this feels very much like a first step.
This article is very well written. It’s refreshing to hear a young person express their views and emotions so thoughtfully. The current administration has silenced many through fear of losing their livelihoods. Trump’s bullying tactics are real and have shut down countless voices that might have otherwise spoken out.
Charlie, I felt the exhaustion in this, the kind that you feel when you care too much but also feel like you’re not doing enough. I also felt hope in what you wrote, even if it’s buried under frustration at the moment. I get that you don’t feel ready to “take the microphone” but there is something deeply powerful about refusing to look away.