Kyle Cave

Staff Writer

Donald Trump was officially sworn in a month ago, and since his inauguration, he has been testing the executive branch and seeing just how far him and his administration can go with policies.

From defying court orders, trying to freeze federal dollars and attempting to censor the press, America is facing the ultimate test of its democracy and no one knows how to fight back.

A lot of people are heavily criticizing the Democrats for not standing up to Trump and his agenda much stronger than one would like. In a lot of ways I agree with the criticism especially considering the fact that they are the only opposing party with the power to do so.

But to be honest I don’t think anyone in Congress currently knows how to fight back against this ongoing democratic backsliding. Hakeem Jefferies in a recent statement likened the Democratic response to a baseball analogy, saying that Democrats, instead of swinging at everything Trump throws at the country will
pick their battles and swing at the most important threatening ones.

Personally, I do not think this is a very effective strategy. The reason I say this is because every single day for the past month our rights have been threatened.

Just this past week Trump did an executive order where he renamed The Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” The Associated Press, one of the country’s oldest news media outlets decided to keep calling it The Gulf of Mexico since it has been called that for over 400 years and every other country calls it that as well.

The Trump administration’s response to this was to ban The Associated Press from The Oval Office and Air Force One.

CNN’s Kaitlin Collins pressed Karoline Levitt the White House Press Secretary on why this ban took place. Levitt responded saying “it is a privilege to be in the white house.” She also added that everyone including Google Maps and Apple Maps are calling it The Gulf of America, so the Associated Press should comply.

Moves like this should be extremely alarming to everyone in government and in Congress. In my opinion, this is an opportunity for younger generations to shine the most.

A lot of people are saying the current democratic leadership that is in place seems like they are not fighting back hard enough. I think the big reason for this is because a lot of the current Democrats in these positions are older people.

And to be fair, older people have never experienced a constitutional
crisis in their lifetime. Democrats have fought and stood up for the rights of minorities and many disadvantaged individuals in the past and I will always give them credit for it. But I think now is a time where younger generations need to lead the charge of change.

Democrats in my view, shut out young people way too often. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is one of the party’s youngest voices and members of Congress. She just lost the election to head the House Oversight Committee. I think it’s way overdue that Democrats let the younger generations lead the charge for change.

I understand everything is a process and that change doesn’t happen
overnight. But we are now facing a situation where we could lose our democracy in these next four years if actions aren’t taken accordingly. Young people have expressed the need for change on a plethora of issues have led some of the biggest protests and have shown the world that it’s serious about moving society forward. The time for massive societal change is now and
Democrats need to make us a part of it.