At the age of 24, I am one of the older members of Generation Y, a generation marked by political and social activists. What fully came into focus is that I have only known one president, President Bush. I was 16 when Bush was sworn in back in 2001, I was not even allowed to drive when Bush was sworn in, I was about as politically aware of the world as a carp.
So, over the past eight years, my entire political understanding has come from the framework built around the Bush Administration. The first years of my adult life were defined by policies that would directly contradict my understanding of America. The last third of my life has seen torture justified, illegal wars raged, unprecedented decreases in civil liberties, and growing xenophobia and closed minded-ness reign.
And so, here I am (as I imagine many of the people my age were) wondering what happened to the America I was told about in school when, all of a sudden, we find a candidate who talks about returning to this ideal. Finally our generation had a candidate who talked about hope and change.
I knew I liked it, but I did not know why.
Our generation did not know how odd of a campaign slogan “hope” really was. All we knew was the policies of today did not work and that we must try to do better. We had the “luxury” of knowing how bad things can be, and the lack of experience to be jaded in the eyes of politics. We had the ability to desire to dream. Some may say it was foolhardy, I say it shows the strength of our democracy.
Today, for the first time, I saw, and will remember a transition of power. I knew it had happened before, but I had no real idea how amazing it was until I just witnessed it. The idea that we as a nation can radically change our course with the utterance of 35 words known as the presidential oath of office.
