By Candace Silver
When President Trump won the 2016 election, I was sixteen, watching the election results pour in at a watch party hosted by the Young Democrats Club from my high school. I volunteered with Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, canvassing, phonebanking, and textbanking, and was also heavily involved in the Young Feminist Club at my high school. I did everything I possibly could to ensure the election yielded results for a candidate who protected democracy in our country. I did everything I could, except for voting, because my age limited my ability to protect my rights and the rights of others. In 2020, I voted and encouraged my peers at college to vote by hosting voter registration drives, phonebanking, and educating people on what was at stake with this election through virtual meetings.
In 2024, while working on campaigns up and down the ballot across the country, throughout all of my travel, I ensured I voted and took my eighty-year-old grandfather to vote, but still, after an insurrection under his belt, multiple felonies, and the promise of Project 2025 being implemented, we went backwards. I felt so broken. It didn’t make sense to me why a woman of color, who served this country as the California Attorney General, a U.S. Senator, and was elected to be Vice President, lost to someone who inflicted violence through legislation and physical violence through an insurrection on our nation’s capital during his first presidential term.
Somewhere along our way, as we evolved, we focused too much on individualism instead of building community and maintaining valuable relationships with people outside of needing something from them. Our lack of community focus thrust us into a situation that will take decades to undo and rebuild. Thankfully, after mourning what we could have had under a Harris presidency, and taking time to adjust to the chaos of the incoming presidency by launching a barrage of tyranny onto the news cycle, I got back to work in my personal capacity of encouraging young people to be politically active and building the pipeline to elect more people from minority groups to elected office, because representation is power. I spoke on a panel in Raleigh, North Carolina, last year for Men4Choice and Let Us Lead, to renew the faith and provide hope for over a hundred young people in the room who traveled across the state to be in community with each other and learn. I continue to empower others to canvass, to launch clubs on college campuses, and to encourage young people to get involved with politics at all levels of government, even while we are unsure of what will happen tomorrow, next week, or next month with this administration. Activities such as these show our strength through adversity while also building community so that you will not fight the battle of the giant that is fascism alone.
At sixteen, I felt so powerless after the election was called because how could adults let this happen? Especially after I did my part in volunteering and doing voter outreach. At 24, I felt disappointment, then anger, because of how Black women are held to impossible standards, but their nonblack counterparts can do anything without consequences.
I didn’t stop my career just because of one election result, especially when more and more LGBTQ+ people and people of color are getting elected to powerful positions now more than ever. I didn’t stop my activism just because of one election result. Progress takes time, and giving up isn’t what’s best for our community. Frustration is fine but letting go is even better after expressing those emotions and realizing that there is always more work to do.
In his first year of presidency, President Trump implemented half of the goals laid out in Project 2025. Those goals primarily target women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community. Growing up, I was always told that a job with the federal government and a job with the post office are secure, especially as a Black woman. Yet, Black women are the ones suffering the most in the job market after DOGE cuts and an ever-increasing unemployment rate.
The government that existed to protect us is hanging on by a thread, with some court wins curbing the power of the president’s rogue executive orders, and the possibility of Congress shifting the favor the people during this midterm election cycle. The question people are asking now is what do we do in the meantime while Trump is cutting billions of dollars to HIV programs, gender affirming healthcare, LGBTQ+ housing programs, eradicating VA home loan programs and making more veterans homeless through foreclosures, eliminating billions of dollars in programs helping the homeless through mental health services, substance abuse programs, and community development programs that prevent housing insecure people from having a second chance, and lastly, telling other party stakeholders that “No one gives an [expletive] about housing.” The answer to that question is to talk to your neighbors. Talk to your coworkers, talk to your friends, talk to your family, volunteer with nonprofits or political campaigns, and join others in whatever capacity you can to help other people. Churches, mosques, and philanthropists are using their power to help those in need within their communities.
It isn’t up to the individual American to control what happens with election results. I wish I knew that at sixteen. Progress is not linear. Sometimes things go backwards before we can take that giant leap forward. The most important part is to remember that the people before you built the road that you walk on now. They didn’t build it alone either; they worked together to protect voting rights for all Americans. They worked together to provide us with the luxury of how we live today. There is strength in our struggle and power in making it through adversity. Through collective action such as mutual aid, volunteering, and being involved with local politics, we can provide a sense of peace in the midst of the chaos attempting to overwhelm us to the point of inaction. Our community is our power. Our community is our strength.