To the editor:
I have voted in every election since I turned 18 years old. But voting was the only political activity in which I partook until the fall of 2016. At that time, I became distressed due to who the Republican nominee was. Friends said to me not to be in despair but to go out and do something for the election.
It wasn’t until that fall election that I had ever taken any action other than voting. I joined a New York City group in Allentown, Penn., to canvass, and I canvassed the two weekends before the November 2016 election. I showed up by myself, and the office paired me with someone with whom I would canvass. This was all new to me.
After the Republican nominee won that election, I continued to learn to take action. I learned to make phone calls to my elected representatives in the House and Senate and to my state elected representatives with my opinions on what was happening in our country and in my state.
I had never thought of myself as someone who had the agency to do these things before. I felt that this was the job of other people who I wanted to represent my viewpoints.
I learned that only I can represent my viewpoints. I learned that I had a job as a citizen, but I had never fulfilled my citizen responsibilities before.
Michelle Obama and Kamala Harris gave us the direction to “do something”—this applies to all of us. We are all citizens who need to fulfill our responsibilities to democracy if we are to retain it.
Alyson Slutzky
Egremont
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