Donald Trump is now the president.
It’s a moment of deja vu as I flashback to ten-year-old me sitting on the floor in my 4th-grade classroom, realizing that my country had failed to elect the first woman of the United States. Two years later I volunteered to help elect what I hoped would be the next one as Elizabeth Warren’s campaign for president captured my imagination my twelve-year-old self sat perched atop the washing machine in the basement of our home in Virginia, making phone calls asking people to vote for her. I still remember those calls: a woman who was in labor, another at work atop a bridge repairing a cable, another at home gaming. I’m not sure what they thought of my squeaky, prepubescent voice telling them where their local polling place was but I remember thinking just how cool it was that I could speak to my fellow Americans and express what I thought even though I wasn’t going to be able to vote for another six years.
In 2024, I did vote. I cast my vote for Kamala Harris; I also called hundreds of voters, asking them to vote for her. I still get a rush picking up the phone and waiting for the dial tone. Sometimes, I will get a Hola; sometimes, it’s a No, thank you. Usually, these days, someone rarely picks up. When I was seven, living in Malawi, I remember my dad got home late one night from the embassy because someone had tried to burn down a polling place, when I was fifteen, evacuating Ukraine, I remember hearing the planes above my friends when I called to see if they were okay. Malawians who had waited years for their independence from a colonial power and Ukrainians fighting to stave off another. We take for granted how precious our democracy is.
If you haven’t caught on by now, my dad works for the U.S. Department of State as a diplomat, and so I’ve traveled around quite a bit. I’m extraordinarily lucky and privileged, although one downside to the whole moving every two years is that, unlike most American teenagers, I’m unable to work part-time under the Golden Arches, given my visa status. In lieu of this, the State Department allows teenagers to intern at the embassy and make minimum wage over the summer. It’s not glamorous; I mostly became an expert in photocopying and hauling ice teas out of the fridge to hand to thirsty bureaucrats at our Fourth of July party. Despite the profound and somewhat surprising mediocrity of being an embassy intern, there is one thing I will always remember. On my first day, I walked proudly down a nondescript hallway that wouldn’t have been out of place in the 90s to the HR office, where I did something most people probably won’t do during their summer jobs. I raised my right hand and, as required by 5 U.S. Code § 3331 - Oath of office, stated proudly, “I, Everett Johnson, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
A wave of emotion, pride, and responsibility swept over me as I repeated those words, believing every one of them. I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. It’s an oath my father took when he joined the service; it’s an oath my grandad took as he devoted his life to serving his country, it's a promise my nana and grandfather upheld as government workers. It’s a promise, my mother made every day when she entered her classroom pledging allegiance to the republic which stands as one nation under god with liberty and justice for all.
When Donald Trump ran again, he said, “Promises made, promises kept.” I would remind him of his oath to the people of this country to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. An oath he shattered when he incited a violent mob that tried to snuff out American democracy. An oath is breaking once again as he pardons the same people who carried out his coup d’etas. So when Donald Trump took to the capital once again today and uttered that oath, he lied. Donald Trump desecrated that sacred promise we make as Americans to live in a country with liberty and justice for all that is governed by a constitution that boldly begins… “We, the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…” We, the people. We Americans are anyone who believes in that promise laid to bare by our forefathers that “All men are created equal...” We, the people, the woman who was in labor whom I called all those years ago, the construction worker working atop a bridge who wanted to hear my thoughts. It’s the person who picked up in Spanish, the person who said no thank you, and the person who spoke with me for two hours about the future of our country. The same people whom Trump wishes to deport, wishes to take rights from, and wishes to de-unionize are far more American than he can ever be
So, because, unlike Donald Trump, I do uphold my oath to the Constitution I respect that he is the president. He is not my president.
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