Before Barack Obama won the 2008 presidency on the national stage, he won someplace much smaller, but dearer to me: the Parkway District’s Highcroft Ridge Elementary School.
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Leyla Fern King
I was 5 years old, experiencing organized education for the first time. My kindergarten teacher walked us into the school library via a single file line. She shushed each high-pitched giggle and ushered us into tiny, cardboard-constructed voting booths.
I am positive that my parents spent that entire year discussing the election, and yet, as I looked at the two names on the ballot, I did not recognize either. All I knew was that one face looked like mine and the other did not: Barack Obama — the biracial child of a West African immigrant and Midwestern native.
Though I did not know the details yet, I knew Obama and I shared something that John McCain and I would never have in common: shared skin in the game.
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So, I filled in the bubble next to Obama. When Obama won Highcroft Ridge Elementary School, I felt like I had guessed right on a pop quiz. I did not understand yet that we were prophets, correctly predicting the first Black president of the United States of America.
Somewhere between 2008 and 2016, I lost my psychic abilities. By the time I turned 13, I fancied myself revolutionary: the first teenage girl to fight against the Man (her parents).
I was convinced I knew something that my parents forgot, so sure that they had lost their humanity when they passed the age of 40. Why else did they fail to support Bernie Sanders in the primary elections?
I was no longer a prophet, but I still had the magic of a dream. I dreamed that Sanders would win, then I dreamed that Hillary Clinton would break the glass ceiling.
I was 13, and thus, I was naïve too. During a diversity club meeting at school, I raised my hand in a room full of high schoolers and confidently told them: I’m not afraid of Donald Trump winning; all Trump supporters are stupid, and there aren’t enough stupid Americans to believe in him.
They shook their heads at me and guided me towards the truth: Many Trump supporters are well-educated; some are even well-intentioned. That’s what makes him scary. That’s why he’s going to win. Somewhere between 13 and 17 years old, they had lost the ability to dream.
When Trump won several months later, I was the only one surprised. I showed up to school in the Feel the Bern shirt I spent weeks begging my parents to buy for me. I seethed, and then, when the dream finally faded, I cried too.
Today, I am finally old enough to vote in a presidential election, and I am exhausted.
I am tired — of prophesying, of dreaming, of thinking. As I approach my first general election, I know it will be the same candidates on the ballot as the last one. I am terrified. I am afraid that Trump will win, that he will get to appoint more Supreme Court justices, that he will accomplish all the things he failed during his first four years.
In 2016, I thought Trump supporters were stupid for believing that he could win. In 2024, I fear I am stupid to believe that he won’t.
I do not want a felon president; I do not want to fear for my liberties; I do not want another Trump presidency.
Yet, any enthusiasm I have for a continued Biden presidency is only fueled by my fear of Trump. At 5 years old, I excitedly filled in the bubble next to Obama because I felt like I was a part of something. At 13, I let myself Feel the Bern because I wanted to be revolutionary.
At 21, all I want is the pretense of a dream and to stop running from nightmares.
I know that when Nov. 5, 2024, rolls around, I will be casting a vote for Joe Biden, even if it is begrudgingly so. My opposition to Trump is stronger than my apathy towards Biden. My fear for the future beats my hesitancy to vote at all.
With my psychic years long behind me, I can no longer promise that Biden will win this election; I can only dream of it. If we’re lucky, Biden will win at Highcroft Ridge Elementary School before he wins on the national stage, and the prophets of today will once again predict the future.
King is a rising senior pursuing a BA in psychology and French at Indiana University, where she earned a scholarship through the Wells Scholars Program. She is a graduate of John Burroughs School class of ’21. Her commentary, sponsored by the River City Journalism Fund, is part of a series of op-eds in the Post-Dispatch this month from young local writers on the topic of voting. It will be shared at an event called Songs for Democracy 2024, a benefit for the League of Women Voters, June 24 at the Sheldon Concert Hall.