Wright is a youth leader at NM CAFe.
Politicians often proclaim that “youth are the future,” but they don’t listen to our voices or consider our opinions when making policies that will shape the future. The reality, however, is we don’t need to wait for young people to become changemakers — we already are changemakers. We are actively shaping the world through activism, raising our voices and organizing — and it’s time for politicians to take us seriously.
As a young person, I know that we are already challenging the status quo and reshaping the organizing sphere. I have witnessed the success of including young people in organizing from a young age when, at 16, I started working on disability accessibility in my home state of New Mexico. This led to furthering policy that helped support students with dyslexia, which I also have. Organizing around disability accessibility led to the state funding more money for testing for youth with disabilities.
Including youth voices in organizing is essential to adapting our current landscape to the needs and aspirations of those entering the space — something often overlooked in discussions about necessary steps toward building an inclusive economy that centers working people and families and treats those people with dignity.
Organizers face many challenges, but I want to focus on solutions. Transformational change in organizing must begin with a genuine interest and commitment to creating a long-lasting impact. Increasing diversity within organizing is a crucial first step. This goes beyond checking boxes across race, faith or gender; it means building a bigger table that includes young people.
Gen Z is unapologetically authentic and consistently shows up for our communities. The necessity to adapt is an important quality that youth leaders bring to the ever-changing field of organizing. We are digital natives, adept at using technology to amplify our voices and connect with others globally. Being fluent in this rapidly changing landscape allows us to organize quickly, spread awareness and mobilize support in ways previous generations could only dream of.
Intergenerational organizing, like the program Faith in Action and NM CAFe are building through Rising Youth, provides a home for youth who are interested in creating social and political change but aren’t typically in communities that allow space for them to get fully engaged.
Youth organizing spaces shift the current sphere of thinking to focus on issues that have often gone overlooked and under-prioritized. By listening to and empowering young voices, we can change the narrative to one that represents future leaders.
Youth have become boisterous champions of environmental justice, gun reform, LGBTQ+ rights and racial equity. In New Mexico, youth led the successful effort to be part of building the world we want to see, through working on immigration reform, mental health initiatives and creating a national platform for youth to be connected and empowered through organizing
Young people are demanding their voices be heard and will mobilize to ensure the issues that matter most to them aren’t swept under the rug. Young voters' political and social opinions are pivotal in driving change in this country. We are becoming more civically engaged than the country has seen in the last few decades.
Elected officials and candidates are joining platforms like TikTok and X to reach young voters because they want to build a base of young supporters. However, we don’t just want to be reached through social media; we want to be included and have a voice in the issues that impact us daily.
It is crucial that we continue to support and amplify youth-led initiatives, ensuring that young leaders have the resources, platforms and opportunities that we need to succeed. This means investing in youth programs, fostering intergenerational collaboration and creating spaces where young voices are not only heard but valued. The future is shaped by our actions today, and with youth leading the charge, we can create a more just, inclusive and vibrant world for all.
By listening to and empowering young voices, we can create a better future now. Our generation is ready to lead, and the time for change is today, not in the distant future. It's time for society to recognize and embrace the potential of the next generation as the driving force for positive change.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on October 05, 2026 in Grand Island, Nebraska.
The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home
I was driving home to San Diego from Los Angeles on Monday night when I heard that the President of the United States had offered both cities up to Iran as bomb targets. At a rally in Nebraska, defending his war, Trump told the crowd, “let [Iran] take out Los Angeles, let ‘em take out San Diego.” It was, he said, “a very small price to pay.”
I was coming from a Bernie Sanders rally for Proposition 40, the one-time tax on California billionaires that would send 90% of its revenue to healthcare. We desperately need it to pass because, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires, Trump signed a law that will strip health coverage from 10 million Americans; this tax will make sure we can still cover Californians. Call me crazy, but I think taxing billionaires one time so we can make sure kids in California get to see a doctor is a very small price to pay. I also think that even if Trump were joking, it is indefensible to make jokes about the potential destruction of so many lives. Human life is never a small price to pay. Human life is priceless.
Plus, the reality is: here in San Diego, we’re already paying the price for Trump’s actions, and it’s not small at all. He has gutted FEMA, tried to kill climate resiliency programs, and destroyed public health standards, while his signature law is set to cut off health insurance and food support for hundreds of thousands of San Diegans. Like plenty of American cities, San Diego is already busy finding local solutions to respond to the problems this president has recklessly created.
Not to mention, at least 19 American service members have been killed in this war already. Human rights monitors have documented more than 3,600 dead in Iran by April alone. Here at home, gas is sitting just pennies below its all-time record. Taxpayers have already spent more than $45 billion on the war, while Trump’s oil and gas portfolio has grown by roughly $15.5 million this year alone. Of course anything is a “small price” to someone paying free.99 for this war, and profiting from it. Meanwhile, We the People are paying twice: first for the war, and then for the consequences of that war. But now he wants San Diego to pay a third time, flippantly offering us up to Iran.
It is worth noticing which cities he thought to name. Were San Diego and Los Angeles strategically chosen to signify something to his audience, or were they simply the first cities that came to mind as expendable places? Either way, the effect is to normalize—-and to gauge a crowd’s reaction to–the idea of massive violence in major California cities, suitable targets because of their perceived liberal lean. So what if Iran needs to bomb a little bit of America before the war can be over? Who cares, says Trump, if they target Los Angeles and San Diego?
By the way, why didn’t he offer up San Francisco, the free-love hippie-town MAGA loves to hate (and also my birthplace)? Could it be because that’s where the tech titans live? The same ones who joined Trump for Xi Jinping’s state dinner, a guest list worth a combined $2.4 trillion?
San Diego may have fewer billionaires, but it is home to more than 115,000 active-duty service members and 230,000 veterans. One in six active-duty sailors–in the entire Navy–is stationed here. So is one in four Marines. You cannot throw a rock in this county without hitting a military family: brats and spouses and veterans are among us. I got out of the Navy last year after ten years, and eight of those were here in San Diego. When Trump says “let ‘em take out San Diego,” he’s talking about the backbone of the United States military. He’s also talking about the people fighting his war.
San Diego has not been watching this war from the sidelines. Today, the USS Abraham Lincoln returns to North Island after an almost yearlong deployment to the Middle East that featured food shortages, broken toilets, and mold in the showers after 286 days at sea without a single port call. Eight sailors in the Lincoln’s strike group attempted suicide, but in August, when a reporter asked whether the deployment had gone on too long, Trump said “not nearly long enough.” Now he has told a crowd in Nebraska that we should let Iran take out the city those sailors call home. These are sociopathic sentiments.
Last week at Quantico, Pete Hegseth closed his address to the force by telling them, “President Trump has your back and so do I.” To the contrary, President Trump has put one of the biggest military towns in the country forward as a target for our adversaries. With friends like these, the “domestic” in “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” starts to sound a lot less hypothetical.
San Diego is home to Naval Air Station North Island, Naval Base San Diego, Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, the Point Loma submarine base, Camp Pendleton, and Miramar (and I have been permanently stationed at or trained at all of them). If Iran bombed San Diego and Los Angeles, aside from the devastating loss of life, it would cripple an immense share of our national security readiness.
And for what, exactly? Trump says the war is “essentially almost over with.” This is the same man who claimed in June 2025 that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” then launched a war over it anyway on February 28. More than seven months later, he wants us to believe two things at once: that we’ve basically won, and that we might need to sacrifice an American city or two to finish winning. If the war is almost over, why does anybody need to take out San Diego?
I wonder if Trump’s endorsed candidate for California’s 48th District here in San Diego County will respond to these remarks. He recently said “no pain, no gain,” when referring to the gas prices San Diegans are paying. Jim Desmond, would you apply that same mindset if we were bombed? Or do you have the moral courage to stand up for the people you’re running to represent?
Last November, six Democratic members of Congress, all veterans, including Senator Mark Kelly, recorded a video reminding troops of their duty to disobey unlawful orders, restating the law that says so. Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” and then his Justice Department went looking for an indictment, which a grand jury refused. The president treated reading the law out loud to the troops as a capital offense, but then he himself invited a foreign enemy to destroy two American cities, possibly as a punchline. Is anyone calling the latter sedition? Who is demanding accountability?
Calling our lives a small price to pay affirms a moral bankruptcy, as well as an obvious dereliction of duty to the office he holds. While we can’t impeach him or invoke the 25th Amendment ourselves, we must stop being so quiet about what we’re paying already. We can make our voices heard by calling our representatives, writing op-eds, knocking doors, phone banking, and voting in defiance of the man who threatens the safety of our city. Ballots are already arriving in mailboxes. Vote, and vote yes on 40 (and no on 41 and 42).
Trump has been harming our cities for a while, but now he is inviting our military adversaries to join him in the harm. If we have any self-respect as Americans, we must not tolerate our leaders disregarding the dignity of lives in this way. We must fight for our home.
Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.