Late Night Soapbox: Millennial Politicians in SELA

I just want to begin this piece by saying that I am a millennial. I am a first generation Mexican-American millennial who lived through what every millennial has grown up with. The disconnect from a yester-world of telephones with chords on them and disposable cameras to the present day and forevermore state of living on the technological grid.

I have been a news junkie for as long as I could remember and I became incredibly interested with the way our government works since I was a 9 year old sitting in the Huntington Park Council Chamber in my baseball uniform begging them to keep the lights on in the park's baseball field so we can practice after all the other teams had gone. I believe more importantly I became engaged in our government and local city council's when I was in my sophomore year of high school. Understanding how the U.S Government came to be and works presently, how local ordinances affect our residents, understanding the Brown Act, being a poll worker at 16 for Federal and Local Elections, reading the U.S Constitution and being informed on the diversity in various cultures from cities to counties to states.

In this time of chaos throughout the nation, there is something that continues to irk me everyday and that is Millennial Politicians. And I know what you may be thinking, "Jim, these young people are going to bring the change that we need. Out with the old ideas and in with the new!" But is it? Really?

You see my issue with these younger politicians really isn't their passion because clearly it is spewing out of every pore for some of these folks. When I first met a peer of mine, she shook my hand, introduced herself and immediately followed that up with, "I'm going to be mayor someday." And kudos to her, she is in that spot a little less than three years later.

What concerns me about millennial politicians is the fact that we are incredibly overconfident with little substance to back that confidence up. According to a Pew research study, millennials are more entitled and confident than previous generations. We really did grow up with trophies for showing up everyday to schools, were taught to believe that our opinions no matter how right or wrong are valid and moreover we set up the infrastructure that is the current social media sphere in popular culture.

And it's these things that I am beginning to notice that are bleeding over into South East Los Angeles politicians. They are hyper obsessed with their image, they treat our seniors as challenges to overcome, they treat our communities as victims and they are the sole protectors of the people and they use an entire online sphere of "like-minded" strangers as justifications for their reasoning and actions.

They are incredibly good at this. They are savvy and they work the online crowds by using buzzwords, by sharing images to give the perception of them being "active" at work and they have the young generation at their whim. But I have known enough politicians to know when I am being pandered to or when they give out politically convenient milk-toast responses and I am growing tired of it.

I know a lot of you are excited about the young people getting involved in politics but frankly I am not. I would not and do not trust most people my age because I still think they need time to grow and get to know themselves. Let kids be kids, let teens (as annoying as they may be) be teens, let young adults be young adults and find themselves. And that is exactly what these young adults need time to do-- grow up. Because for a long time we were saying that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram is not the real world but it is now and that is truly an unfortunate turn in history. Most of these people have never been in management or lead positions in a private workplace, most of these people have never worked a budget before, some of them just started paying bills. No amount of education will amount to real world experience and any adult with a fully formed prefrontal cortex will 100% agree on that. So the combination of entitlement, slight narcissism and inexperience is just a recipe waiting to alienate the very people they were voted in to serve and it has already begun. Just hop onto any city's local Facebook group page.

I have seen some terrible elected officials in my 10 years of active involvement in our local cities. From the Robert Rizzo scandal in the city of Bell, the shady workings of disgraced Mario Beltran in Bell Gardens, the Albert Robles case (Fun fact: Robles was California's youngest person to hold public office, his youth was much of his draw) that nearly bankrupted the city of South Gate, former Huntington Park Councilwomen Linda Luz Guevara being charged with perjury to the complete mismanagement and incompetence of the central basin municipal water district.

Now imagine what kinds of horror stories can come out of this generation and it is all going to unfold on the online public square. Every young generation thinks they will change the world through political and social action. I am sure that is exactly what most of the most ineffective politicians on the national stage thought when they were first elected into office in the 70's or 80's.

I do not think we need young inexperienced, overconfident, self obsessed politicians who use hashtags and TikToks to reach out to constituents. To me the greatest trait of a leader is that they do not want to be a leader. These folks using our cities as stepping stones to make it all the way to the top is suspect. Call me an old fart but I am very much one of them. I am a millennial, vote us out.

Thanks for reading my opinion.

P.S

I just want to note that there are tons of good people my age, younger and older truly helping our communities, even the ones I disagree with and to that I am eternally grateful for.