Old, straight, cisgender, white men are the people who are running our country. They make problems and then leave it for us to deal with. This is unfair to young people, who will be stuck having to follow things created by people who don’t have our best interests at heart. 

“Young people are badly underrepresented in the U.S. government,” reporter Dayton Martindale said. “The average age of Senators is currently 63, a full 25 years older than the median U.S. resident.” This is outrageous. Why are we having people who can barely take care of themselves decide what we can do?

One thing I believe our government representatives should not have a say in is whether a women gets an abortion or not. Lawmakers in Texas have recently made a law that once a heartbeat is detected, abortion is illegal. Some states including Oklahoma and Idaho are following suit, making similar laws. Who do you think are the people who are making those laws? That is right, rich, old, white men who do not have uteruses and will never experience having one. How is that fair? They have no clue what each person who is having an abortion is going through. What if it is an eleven-year-old girl who got raped and is pregnant because of it? Nope, she has to carry out her pregnancy full term even if it will cost her life.

Older generations are proven to be a lot more culturally insensitive. 

According to Yale, 70% of young people believe in climate change while only 50% of older people believe in it. That is a super big deal. Climate change is real and it is going to affect all of us, but half of the older generation (a lot of them being the people in power) do not even believe in it.

“Research has shown that young people are increasingly less racist than older people,” Lindsay Dodgson, a reporter from Business Insider said. “For example, in 1958, just 4% of Americans approved of interracial marriage. This support only reached 50% in 1997, while now it is at 87%.” Racism is not just someone saying a blatant racist slur. Sometimes it can be a ‘joke’ or subtle racial stereotyping. 

I need to be seen. I am not an old white man. My parents are not old white men. I need to be represented in the government. We talk about how we want diversity in schools but that needs to start with the government, including local government. Our superintendent? A white man. Our principle? A white man. We need to see change now, but how do we do that? We need term limits. How come we can have a minimum age for terms, why not have a maximum? If you are past a certain age, you will not be affected by the things you cause in the government, so why should you even have a say in it?