Teen Apathy in the Political World

Guest Opinion

By Tess Tarchak-Hiss | Nov. 29, 2025

In my third-grade classroom, Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Tension was high in Mrs. Maxbaur’s class; girls galloped across the playground on their imaginary horses, gathering info on everyone to see who would vote for whom. On my made-up mare, I investigated that 14 kids would be voting for Clinton and 14 would be voting for Trump.

Well. Shoot. By the time we ripped off our snowpants and muddled into the line with gel-pens in hand, I still had no idea who I was going to vote for. I knew who my mom was leaning toward, and I knew who my friends, spouting questionable speech from their parents, were in favor of.

I didn’t know the policies of either candidate, only that Clinton wanted voters to “Pokémon Go-to-the-polls.” That should’ve won me over.

Plot twist: it didn’t. By the time I stepped up to the ballot, I freaked. They announced the results over the loudspeaker after we got back from lunch: 15 votes for Trump, 13 votes for Clinton, and one vote for Gary Johnson. Mini Tess was the epitome of a little libertarian, despite sobbing as soon as the pretend outcomes were disclosed.

When I woke up the next morning on Nov. 9, 2016, my mom was also crying on the couch. This time, it was real.

Don’t get me wrong—I have political opinions, and I’m not a moderate. But I was never the type to advertise them publicly by posting random rainbow-colored infographics on my social media or wearing pins and badges on my Kermit the Frog backpack in hopes that someone would agree or disagree with my selection. I’d sympathize, but I’d never take action—others were already doing that.

This directly contradicts the way my mom tried to raise me. We have a “Give a Damn” sign strategically placed right above the toilet, but up until recently, I only gave grumbles and the bare minimum.

I didn’t care about a single book my mom brought me from the library about political apathy. I rolled my eyes when she tried to educate me about Title IX. I cringed when she cried to me about the direction this country was heading. It wasn’t a disinterest in the arising danger: it was just me deliberately breaking down everything my mom stood for, intending to go against her out of my tedious teenage angst.

Being a single mother with two teenage girls, each with a plethora of personal issues, my mom always had an emergency-assistance alarm at her beck and call. Bleep! The Babs Button was hit.

Picture Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos mixed with Sophia from Golden Girls—that’s my grandma. She puts in 100 percent to aiding her girls and her community. On the board of the New Jersey Wharton Dems, Babs strives for change in the world, both by knocking on doors and meandering new ideas through Zoom meetings in Michigan. My mom’s passion for politics stems from her mother; therefore, I took Babs’ democratic drive with a grain of salt.

Which was why, on her last extended stay in October, I was reluctant to go to the No Kings protest with her.

“It’s depressing,” I would argue. “It’s uplifting,” she would rebut. “The world just sucks right now.” “We need to change it.” “I thought you were fighting against change. Like, I didn’t use to have a dictator, and now I do. I used to have rights, and now I don’t.” “It’s not just about us. It’s not just about you.”

Despite being a firecracker, Babs has never uttered anything remotely like those words to her girls before. She wanted to make change happen, but she also wanted to alter how I suddenly and selfishly saw the world.

Angst is never an excuse for stasis, and only guilt is gained from apathy—political or otherwise. By going to the No Kings protest, I viewed the world from the perspective of my mother, my grandmother, and everyone else considerate of the consequences that would come with passivity. The protest wasn’t about a party issue or a personal issue—it was thousands of possibilities for a better future.

I saw an incredibly vast range of expression during the protest. Through costumes and signs to slightly uncanny Trump voodoo dolls, people of all ages attended to represent more than themselves. Yet nothing stood out to me more than the seemingly millions of monarch butterfly costumes.

Little girls would fly across the field with their orange wings fluttering behind their backs; they would march with a clearly handmade sign in one palm and their parents’ hands in the other. I felt motivated to do more, if not for me, then for them. They were the future, and their possibilities should be freeing. Babs was right: it was inspiring.

Change is petrifying, and in a world where policies can shift in a blink of an eye, it’s human nature to turn distress into detachment. But the way to battle dispassion is to deliberately get involved and better understand and empathize with the people around us.

Especially your grandmother.

Tess Tarchak-Hiss is a senior at Traverse City West Senior High. She explores the world around her by writing at her dining room table while listening to Wiz Khalifa.