Speaking Truth To Power

This essay explores why young organizers in Georgia have become disillusioned with a Democratic Party that speaks of change yet resists it, arguing that genuine progress requires confronting entrenched power and pursuing a more transformative, democratic socialist vision.

In 2024, perhaps the most important election of my lifetime showed that red was Georgia’s true color. Having worked with the Democratic Party of Georgia throughout high school, you might expect grief or despair to best reflect my feelings about Trump’s razor-thin victory, but all I felt was the uncomfortable feeling of knowing this would happen all along.

Disappointment is a long-established tradition in the Democratic Party, especially in youth organizing, which is forever at the whim of those disconnected from anything “modern.” Hope and pride at what we could accomplish is more often the reward we’re granted, instead of a candidate who actually represents our interests. 

It has long been my belief that the Democrats have simply left the future behind, but this essay examines a far deeper flaw in the party. I’ll start with a few examples from my time in the Young Democrats of Georgia (YDG), and explore why the aims of the Democratic Party are irreconcilable with the means.

I began my political career coordinating events with my chapter of the Georgia High School Democrats (GHSD),  aiming to host voter registration initiatives. At least, I tried; every time I tried to discuss the idea with school administration and Dem-affiliated voter registration organizations, I was met with doom-signaling and bureaucratic uncertainty, worries about non-school-affiliated adults on campus from my administrators, and concerns of party ties. 

There were too many obstacles to make mobilization a reality. I had to settle for growing helplessness in one of Georgia’s most diverse, left-leaning high schools that had been left to the wayside.

Moving outward, to the state as a whole: YDG always struggled with funding, but during the election cycle, we had far more problems than necessary. Why? Nikema Williams, our former state party chair, kept her position as U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 5th District for nearly five years while still serving as the party’s main fundraising powerhouse — yet, as an elected official, she was barred from raising money outside her own campaigns.

YDG faced even drier prospects after a string of public statements from officials politely asked Chair Williams to resign and expressed concern for the state of the party at present, resulting in a burning out of the organizational mainframe until Charlie Bailey was elected our new chair for a new Georgia in 2025.

Moving beyond our country, to our consciousness: As Membership Director of GHSD, I made it my job to talk to high schoolers about why they wanted (or didn’t want) to get engaged, how they felt about the party I aligned myself with, and what they felt the trajectory of our country was.

I would describe the overwhelming consensus as one of apathy, best explained through an aphorism we hear far too often, that “we are the future of America.” That statement is as inspiring as it is false. We are America, products of all that came before us, every culture shift and world-shattering event. 

We are not only children of the digital age, but of the Iraq War and Great Recession, of Obergefell and Citizens United, of the death of McCain’s party of values and birth of American anti-intellectualism – everything that came before us and decided the world we inhabit.

What ties all these things and every overworked, under-stimulated student I spoke to together is the fact that we never had a choice in the world left to us. I, and many others, would hate to be the future of an America that has defaced the entirety of my political memory with the racist, alleged rapist, and now-convicted felon chosen to lead our country in an election I couldn’t even vote in.

It is the impossibility of feeling like we’ve ever had a choice that seems to define the consciousness of my generation. If you’re reading this, that may be what you feel, but apathy is the instrument of regression. Change, fleeting as the possibility of it feels, can only sculpt a society in which agents of change move the world forward. But therein lies the problem – with my high school, with former Chair Williams, with the collective apathy of our generation. We have never been in a world more ready for change, yet we happen to live in a world where the supposed ‘party of change’ leaves us behind.

The reality we did not consent to is in no way different from any generation that came before, only in that all past generations were given the same lack of choice. But we now hold the torch of progress. It’s our time to light the brazier of a new world: a world worthy of the next generation we leave it to.

Why are we left behind? A simple truth: the ‘party of change’ is fundamentally opposed to the force of change. A simple reason: the Democratic Party is the only established seat of liberal power in our country. Power is always opposed to change – any change that disrupts the status quo necessarily disrupts the machinations of power, because power thrives on stability and, in some senses, stagnation. 

Any upheaval of institutions or norms forces those benefiting most from the current system to change – and those funding the Democrats have indubitably aligned themselves with political petrification.

Thus, the party sets itself up to fail. It can only support change so long as it is non-threatening. Universal healthcare would destroy the private healthcare industry. Higher minimum wages would cut into corporate profits. Support for the people of Palestine would challenge alliances with Israel and the rising power of AIPAC1 in lobbying spheres. 

That is the very reason why DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) exists – “the center-right Democratic Party is controlled by its elite donor class, and cannot act as an effective political counter to the nationalist far right.”2 To make change that threatens a system in sore need of threats – for nothing can change unless definitive, concentrated interest and action are shown – something more is required than a political sphere that is deeply sympathetic to the interests of the ruling class.

Democratic Socialism is the articulation of a foundational truth: politics is not an arbiter of change, but an ally. If wielded with care and purpose, like any other tool, the state can truly be the seat of the people’s power. But it is only through collective effort and orientation that Democratic Socialism can be achieved – it’s in the name. If you’re reading this, then you’ve taken the first step. The greatest threat to power is not war, nor is it politics. The greatest threat to power is you, for you are America. Amanda Gorman put it best in The Hill We Climb, written in the midnight hours of the January 6th insurrection:

…we will rebuild, reconcile, and recover in every known nook of our nation in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful, when the day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid, the new dawn blooms as we free it, for there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.3

A new dawn is breaking, America, if only you are brave enough to bring it to light. But the sunrise we seek only surfaces if we bring it forth, and so I ask of you only this: volunteer, organize, make calls or knock on doors. Write or speak your thoughts to people and power. The new dawn only blooms if we all play our part in the day at hand. Your voice – and your power – are the greatest asset we have to create a true land of the free. 

1. Policies We Support, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 2025.
2. Program for 2024, Democratic Socialists of America, 2024.
3. Gorman, Amanda. The Hill We Climb. University of Vermont, 2021.