My name is Thomas. I’m a white 13 year old boy currently going to a public middle school in Southington, Connecticut. You’re probably looking for working-class adults to be interim state leaders, so I may not be your ideal candidate for the position. I do think that you’ll have some trouble finding 3 to 5 working-class adults in CT with 10+ hours per week to dedicate to the Forward Party, as we’re a relatively small state in both population and open-mindedness, especially among adults. On the contrary, you’ll have no trouble recruiting kids like myself to give as much time as is needed to get your message out. Like many kids my age, I see countless shootings, violence, opioid use, and despair around my state (specifically in Hartford and New Haven, which I frequent), and I look for any ideologies that could lead to real change. I found Marx and the Communists before I found the Forward Party, and I began thinking that a violent proletarian uprising was the future of our country soon after reading Das Kapital. I knew deep down that this was unrealistic, as Marxism has been tried various times on both large and small scales and, for the most part, just inhibited progress and strengthened corrupt governments. I got into this mindset of pessimism about the future: capitalism as we know it doesn’t work, but neither do alternatives like communism and socialism. Many youth in CT and across the country are stuck in this mindset as you read this. They have so much pent-up energy and will to change, but they have no place to exert it. Yang’s book The War on Normal People, which I was given by a friend, changed everything for me. First, I realized that at least one influential person understands how I and countless others feel about the state of our nation. Second, I realized that there is a viable solution to our institutional capitalism that is both dramatic and reasonable: human-centered capitalism and UBI. Even my father, a conservative economist, was intrigued by the realism of a ten percent value-added tax to pay for something that seems so unreal. The Forward Party is a beacon of hope for so many kids like me, and I’d be honored to dedicate as much of my time as possible to get the word out about it. It helps that I have a view into how the younger generation thinks and functions, and I can consequently better persuade teens and young adults to give their time to the Forward Party, even if they can’t yet give their vote. Southington is also a very politically diverse town (we had a 1% margin between Biden and Trump in the most recent election), so having a teen from here be an interim state leader would be better than having one from a town like West Hartford, at least in terms of knowledge of the motivations and ideologies of both conservatives and liberals. I believe in the entirety of the Forward Party’s platform, from UBI to ranked choice voting, and I truly think that it’s the future of our country. I can use many means to get the message out, including social media and real-life marketing, and I could even start a Forward Party Youth Wing in my state. I will do everything in my power to make sure you won’t regret it if you select me as an interim state leader.
