Mia Lasic-Ellis

Most journeys in civic life don’t begin at five years old, but on January 19, 2010, I brought my kindergarten class’s teddy bear to the polls.

I didn’t really understand what the election was about (or that you’re not supposed to share how other people voted—sorry, Mom), but to enter a voting booth, watch the ballot get eaten by the voting machine, get a sticker and share all about it with my classmates the next day? I was excited.

I often find myself reflecting on this younger version of myself and wondering how I will find joy in our country like that again. It’s hard when so much of the American government today appears to be on the brink of failure.

When I read headline after headline each morning, there are more moments when I tell myself, “This can’t be true.” Loss of independence in the Department of Justice. Congress stalled, unable to pass a budget. The Supreme Court overturning decades of doctrine that protect women, voters, the environment and so much more. Increasing political violence—it’s all a lot to take in.

How do I still have faith in the American government when so much seems to be going wrong?

I’m not sure.

And this is despite the fact that I graduate later this month with my degree in Government and Legal Studies (with an American Politics concentration to boot). When I tell people that’s what I’ve studied, they always say something along the lines of, “Well, this sure is an interesting time to pursue that.”

They’re not wrong. For instance, I took “U.S. Congress” when the House removed Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the first removal of a House speaker ever. The House spent weeks picking his replacement, and each time we met, we would review leading candidates and how many votes had failed since we last met, until Mike Johnson was selected. It was entertaining, but it was also unsettling, since nothing like this had happened in my lifetime.

With so much uncertainty, I turn to when I felt more stable, if naive. When being a student of the American experiment felt less fraught.

In elementary school, I would speed to the rack of VHSs and DVDs in the library, searching for the set of four DVDs comprising “Disney’s The American Presidents.”

The four documentaries (clearly meant for classrooms) covered each president from Washington to Obama’s first term. None of the videos took themselves too seriously, but my favorite disc was the fourth and final, covering 1945–2010.

My parents, for better or for worse, let me lean into this interest. I checked out every “Who Was…?” book on a president I could find in our library. We visited John F. Kennedy’s and Calvin Coolidge’s birthplaces. I remember playing games on the PBS Kids website about the Obama-Romney election (yes, such a website existed).

As I grew older, so did my interest. I can clearly remember sitting at a desk in the House chamber at the Massachusetts State House in fourth grade on a field trip. I ran for office at Massachusetts Girls State. I was prouder to be wearing my first “I voted” sticker for a town election than I was of my Bowdoin sweatshirt on college decision day in high school.

It’s America’s 250th birthday this year, and I’m trying hard to feel celebratory. It’s a huge milestone, after all, and I want to be excited about it. This anniversary should be a testament to the American experiment working, but if anything, it feels like a funeral dirge.

But I can’t let down my younger self, who was so excited by our three-branch system and believed so deeply that it could do so much good. You might scoff at me, but in some ways, I still do. A lot is going wrong right now, but there’s still so much that could go right.

Today’s politics are scary, but the American system and so many citizens still give me hope. As we leave Bowdoin, I hope you join me in seeing the possibilities still ahead for us and the future of our country.

So many of us were those five-year-olds tagging along to the polls. Don’t give up on their dreams now.

Julia Dickinson is a member of the Class of 2026.