Unprecedented times

Over the speaker during afternoon announcements, my principal read off the tallied results of our mock presidential election. Democratic candidate Barack Obama beat John McCain in a margin that my second-grade brain didn’t even bother processing. I do, however, remember being disappointed; no one likes to lose, and I had of course voted for the Republican candidate my family had gone on and on about.

That was the first election cycle I had been conscious of, if only just for that short elementary school civics lesson.

Growing up, there was a question that loomed over my and my classmates’ heads. From teachers, administrators, coworkers and strangers, conversation about my age somehow found its way to: “Were you even alive for 9/11?” And my answer is yes, but only by a few months. I recall in my sophomore year of high school hearing the new wave of freshmen being distinguished as the first post-9/11 generation of students.

History, of course, did not begin when I was born. A generation before, people would answer where they were for the Challenger space shuttle explosion and the fall of the Berlin Wall. As a young person growing into my civic responsibilities, it feels like this terrorism-fueled blip in history is the most important of all time. Or, at least, that is how it has been told — and yelled — to my
generation.

Unprecedented times are becoming more and more precedented.

I was told that the 2016 presidential election was the most important election of my life; I was not yet old enough to vote. That election jumpstarted a need within myself to do more, be more. I had to start paying attention.

I graduated from high school and went up the street to UD for college. On my application, I checked journalism as my intended major; I had no inclination as to why. And when professors and classmates asked me what I wanted to do with a journalism degree, I hadn’t known and told them as much. Then in my sophomore year — amid the unprecedented events of a global pandemic and worldwide lockdown — I picked up a political science minor. These were among the academic steps toward my self-submersion in the American political waters.

That semester also fell during the unprecedented circumstances of the 2020 presidential election.

My laptop was open and plugged into the wall for five days straight while Steve Kornacki’s electoral college map lit up in shades of blue and red while the delayed tally came in. How could I not watch the conclusion of what was deemed the most important election of my life — again? This time, however, I had a vote to be counted and added to the mix.

The country got a new president. I got two degrees. Then came the rematch.

As the 2024 presidential election slides quickly into view, I think about how amazing and resilient young people are. I have lost my fire for politics. But, many of my peers are still registering new voters, petitioning legislators and protesting injustice.

There is a vulnerability and guilt in admitting that I feel politically fatigued, but I do not think I am alone. It is tiresome to continuously gear up for the most important election of my life and wade through the waters of unprecedented times. 

I am searching again for the kindling, the spark that brings the humility of lessons learned into focus.

It is hard to accept a place in history and acknowledge the world doesn’t revolve around me and my generation when all I know is how historic the last two decades have been in American politics. 

Waiting for the dismissal bell that early November 2008 afternoon, I learned an important lesson in civics — one my teacher did not think to teach a crop of 7-year-olds. When we, as a student body, fake-elected the first — and only, to date — Black president of the United States, we were nowhere near done making history. And while I am tired of being unprecedented, there is hope in the unknown. I have hope that my generation will do something unexpected, unprecedented. 

Adolescent me couldn’t have dreamed that I would be witness to not one but four — and counting — historic presidential elections. But despite the lethargy tied to holding the future in our hands, we are also bound to be stronger from the weight. A weight I want my share in bearing. 

Zoë Hill is a multichannel content creator on the academic marketing team at Miami University.