Must-read from David Hogg: The reason change doesn't happen... (tweet + full text)

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David Hogg 🟧
@davidhogg111

The reason change doesn’t happen is not because it’s impossible but because people think it is impossible. I believe this idea that change is impossible is the single greatest threat to American Democracy and the future of our country. Let me tell you why.

After Parkland many adults said “what happened is terrible and it’s amazing you kids are standing up but you’ll never change anything because this is Florida” but guess what because the students and the parents of victims like @fred_guttenberg and @manueloliver00 said we don’t care we’re still going to try and we showed up and protested by the thousands in Tallahassee we actually did change gun laws. We raised the age to buy guns in FL to 21 and passed a red flag law. Later, my mother got a death threat from and NRA supporter that said “F with the NRA and you’ll be DOA” we used the law we passed after parkland to disarm the man that threatened to kill my mother and since the passage of that law over 12,000 other people who were a risk to themselves or others have been disarmed.

If we didn’t have the audacity to hope- I may have had to bury my own mother.

Just a few years later I hired a young guy named @MaxwellFrostFL from my freshman dorm room in college to be March For Our Lives national organizing director. In my Jr year of college he called me up and said he would have to leave March because he wanted to run for Congress and asked for my help. Before this I hadn’t really helped anyone run for office in any major way because I didn’t trust politicians who just wanted to use me to help get them elected- then do nothing on guns. But I didn’t see Maxwell as a politician- I saw him as a friend so I did everything I could to help him run. Once again I heard the same thing from professors and “experts” “he’s too young- he doesn’t have the political or donor connections to win, especially against two former members of Congress running in the same race” but I decided to keep going and support him because I knew what an incredible leaders he could be and I’ve seen people say change wasn’t possible before and we proved them wrong. So I helped Maxwell raise $380k in his first two Q. And once again we proved the “experts” wrong with Maxwell winning by 10% becoming the youngest member of Congress. Once elected, Maxwell’s first bill was to create a federal office of gun violence prevention (something March For Our Lives had been pushing for over three years) and within 1 year of his election Maxwell was introducing the president of the United States who was announcing the creation of the office of gun violence prevention. That office has overseen a 20% reduction of gun homicides in the first Q of 2024.

If we listened to the people who said Maxwell couldn’t win and he didn’t bother to try Maxwell would have never been elected as the first Gen Z in Congress and first member of March For Our Lives in Congress and we may not have an office of gvp

We are in a vicious cycle of cynicism and hopelessness that if we don’t break will destroy us. Hopelessness is a self fulfilling prophecy. If we never think things can get better they never will. We need leaders who inspire us so much we believe change isn’t only possible but the expectation to reverse the spiral of hopelessness we are in.

That’s why with Maxwell’s campaign manager Kevin Lata we created Leaders We Deserve. An organization to massively fund and advise the best Democrats of our generation to get elected, get more young people voting because there are young inspiring leaders to vote for and to build the future of the Dem Party. Our candidates are pro gun reform, pro choice and pro environment. They also don’t take corp money and neither does Leaders. Just recently we spent $300k supporting @MollyforTexas who won by just 62 votes and now is the youngest member of the TX Senate.

We have a grassroots funding model with over 103,000 individual donors. If you’d like to support our work you can donate at http://leaderswedeserve.com

10:48 AM · Aug 4, 2024