Pursuing politics in Trump’s world

Content warning: This article contains discussions of gun violence.

From 2020 to 2024, I was a high school student with plans to be the next American changemaker. I participated in my school’s debate team, took a class on constitutional law, interned for city council members, visited Washington, D.C., every chance I could get and wrote enthusiastic essays about my hope to pursue a career in law and politics. Naturally, upon arriving at the University of Michigan, I enrolled in a political science class and became obsessed with the discipline, had the opportunity to watch former Vice President Kamala Harris speak just minutes away from campus and proudly casted my vote in the 2024 presidential election.

Then came Nov. 5. I was crushed. 

My uncle works in politics and I have a vivid memory of a conversation I had about him with my mother. She told me that ever since President Donald Trump was elected in 2016, he hasn’t enjoyed his job. He feels burnt out, frustrated by the shift toward right-wing extremes despite Democrats constantly pushing back. His work felt pointless — and useless — to him. I shared this feeling of depressed hopelessness after the election, before the career I had previously dreamed of even began. My passion for politics fizzled out after the election in November. I spent a lot of time thinking about how infuriating it would be to work in a field that you have such a little impact on, such little control over, that I forgot what drew me to it in the first place. 

My grandmother, who has never given up her 1960s-hippie mission to bring peace to the world, is turning 80 this summer. She has quite literally spent her entire life fighting for the exact opposite of what we are seeing in U.S. politics today and, honestly, I’m scared that if I pursue a career involving politics or law, one day I’ll blink, be 80 myself and have wasted my life fighting an unwinnable battle.

***

Fast-forward to early January 2025: I opened my texts to a message from one of my best friends from high school saying “Bro. Trump is investigating the gender neutral bathroom in East High School.”

I thought it was a joke. But a quick Google search later revealed that my friend was, in fact, telling the truth. Over winter break, the administration at my former high school converted one of the girls bathrooms on the second floor into a gender-neutral bathroom. The Trump administration cited sex-based discrimination as their reason for the investigation.

Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the United States Department of Education, stated that “the alarming report that the Denver Public Schools District denied female students a restroom comparable with their male counterparts appears to directly violate the civil rights of the District’s female students. Let me be clear: it is a new day in America, and under President Trump, OCR will not tolerate discrimination of any kind.” 

This pro-women framework can be viewed as suspicious coming from a man accused of sexual harassment and general mistreatment of women. Additionally, the Trump administration is also known for holding an anti-transgender position and pushing language that promotes a “two-gender-only” ideology. Because of this, I’m not particularly swayed by the argument that Trump is distraught over this bathroom because of his passion for women’s rights, a skepticism I know my grandmother shares.

But beyond these doubts, I think there are a few more important things to note here.

First, the bathroom was converted because of overwhelming student support for the cause. Denver Public Schools released a statement explaining that “This bathroom was added as the result of a student-led process that reflects our commitment to inclusivity and student voice, leadership and empowerment, providing a welcoming space for all.” East is a generally progressive community and home to an incredibly diverse student body, so it’s come as no surprise that students pushed to have the bathroom installed in order to ensure that the building design of the school accurately reflected the values and identities of the student population. 

Second, gender-neutral bathrooms, unlike gender-specific bathrooms, have no limits for who is allowed to use them. While it is no longer a girls-only space, girls are still welcome to use it.

Third, and most importantly, within my four years of high school, two shootings took place. The first was a drive-by shooting that killed a 16-year-old student named Luis Garcia. The second occurred when a student opened fire in school, injuring two administrators and sending students into a lockdown before the student shooter eventually fled and took his own life. The perpetrator, Austin Lyle, was under a “safety plan” that included being searched for weapons each morning. On Wednesday, March 20, for the first time, a handgun was discovered and ultimately used by Lyle. All this to say, East had bigger things going on than our gender-neutral bathroom.  

Trump’s actions thus far in his second presidency have shown that gun violence isn’t a priority for his administration. He recently told supporters that “we have to get over it” in response to a deadly Iowa shooting that took the life of a sixth-grade student, injured seven others and led to the suicide of the 17-year-old shooter.

Prior to taking office, Trump made his gun policy abundantly clear to the National Rifle Association, boasting that “During my four years nothing happened. And there was great pressure on me having to do with guns. We did nothing. We didn’t yield.”

Earlier this month, the Trump administration removed the gun violence public health advisory after former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy declared gun violence in the United States a public health crisis in June 2024, demanding action, research and stronger laws. While these actions can be and have been interpreted differently by various ends of the political spectrum, it is undeniably clear that gun control is low on Trump’s list of priorities despite strong research illuminating the fact that gun safety laws save lives.

***

For every holiday, my grandmother gifts my brother and I various social justice stickers she’s collected over the years. “Save the planet” and “LGBTQ rights are human rights” are plastered on water bottles, computers and walls around our house. But one of these slogans permanently ingrained in my mind is “Save Kids, Not Guns.” After the shootings at my school, I must have received at least 10 of these from her. It’s her way of showing support, and I cherish each one I own. 

It feels different when these kinds of things happen in your own community, in the places that you know and hold dear to your heart; To wake up to headlines and think back to the classrooms you spent hours in, the teachers who wrote your college letters of recommendation and the hallways you walked after meticulously planning your routes just to run into your friends. East was a safe space for me until it became a place my mom questioned if I felt comfortable walking into. But it wasn’t because of the transgender student population or supposed attacks on women’s rights, it was because gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens — something that, unfortunately, students at East lived through.

***

A few weeks ago, I was on a Zoom meeting with the president of a nonprofit organization I’ve been involved with for five years, discussing upcoming changes to our programming. Girls Inc of Metro Denver is a progressive organization centered on empowering young girls through free and equitable programs. It’s basically my second home. The president of the organization is a straight-up badass. She’s direct and decisive, makes an incredibly difficult job look easy, and is never afraid to speak her mind or stand up for what she believes in. So, when she came to me, several of my peers and a small group of employees to tell us that we were being asked by our organization’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. to make changes to our website, including the kind of gender-inclusive language we use, I was stunned. 

This felt like the third time that the shift in political power had personally affected me and my immediate community. And as an upper-middle-class white girl, that’s saying something. The combination of these events — the bathroom, the reminders of past gun violence with a lack of change in response and now an affliction on a community that means so much to me — has reignited what originally made me so passionate about politics: my anger.  

In the next few weeks, as I’m picking my classes for the fall semester, I’ll be thinking a lot about what I want to study and what kind of career I want to build. I’ve done a lot of reflecting about my previous ideology around politics, which stemmed from my resentment of the current political climate. I recognize that I may sound cynical, calling a life devoted to working toward changes that never becomes policy a life “wasted.” And I don’t view it that way when it comes to other people — my grandmother is my own personal superwoman and I think the world is a little bit of a better place just because she’s in it. But I’m also hesitant to devote my life to something that could very possibly yield little to no change. I don’t mean to insinuate that this isn’t an essential role — it’s the most essential role — but instead that I don’t know if I’m the right person to play it. 

There’s also a part of me that resents myself for this line of thinking in the first place. I firmly believe that actions matter more than words. I don’t want to be the kind of person who gives up a career because it scares her or because there’s a chance it might lead to absolutely nothing. I’m aware of the fact that if everyone shared this ideology, we would quite literally make no progress. I struggle a lot with feeling validated in doing anything that doesn’t make a tangible difference, but what does tangible even mean? Do I think Harris had a pointless career because she lost the race for presidency? No. I think she’s one of the leaders of this generation, a face of change and made an incredible difference in our country by doing exactly what I’m afraid to do: try.

There are an almost infinite number of ways to make a positive impact on the world. My grandmother did that through her countless hours spent volunteering, protesting and her career in social work. At this point, I think politics is an intrinsic part of my life. While I’m not going to guarantee that I’ll pursue a career in politics, I know I’ll always be involved in it. Maybe this involvement will be pointless and maybe I won’t accomplish anything. But I’ve come to realize that when I’m 80, even if the government is filled with a thousand right-wing extremists, I’d be happiest knowing that I played a little part in making their lives more difficult and, with that, making the world a little bit of a better place. I know that my grandmother is.

Statement Correspondent Liska Torok can be reached at liskator@umich.edu.

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