Written by Anne Sehon,

In a time of intense American political polarization that has caused what feels like legislative and electoral paralysis for many, the Forward Party has emerged to provide an outlet for the Americans who feel stuck between extremes. 

From shared frustrations and motivations, five teenagers banded together to form a new Forward Party committee: the Young Forwardists. “The Young Forwardists Committee … is the Forward Party's proxy on campuses,” said Committee President Gabriel McGuire. “We prioritize things like civic activism, education on campus, and we do this through our chapters. We use these to instigate a new essential demographic within the targeting of the Forward Party, and that is the youth.”

The five originating Young Forwardists, having literally started the movement from their bedrooms, come from all across the country–New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania–and hope to expand much further. Now, they spend their time meeting together and with other Forward members virtually, building the foundations of the Committee. These teenagers have decided to dedicate their youth to the betterment of their political system instead of using their summer for leisurely activities. And they do it with immense pride. Let’s meet these five teenagers.

McGuire is a rising freshman at the University of Pennsylvania and an avid political activist. “I had always been a stranger to the two-party system, although the Forward Party initially engaged me by offering open online debates. I was only sixteen at the time, and I was given an equal audience before figures that could enact real, tangible change,” he reflected. Having discovered the Forward Party early on in his high-school career, McGuire’s multi-year experience with the organization led him to think innovatively regarding the youth’s potential in enacting political change. “Originally, the youth movement intended to bolster Pennsylvania's supporter network before it evolved nationwide into the Young Forwardists Committee,” said McGuire, “Now, across this work, I have shared the pleasure of offering safe discussion spaces to youth in colleges and high schools around the country.”

Relating to the Young Forwardists’ emphasis on widespread political involvement for specifically the youth, Kris Sun, the Committee’s Vice President, is motivated by his passion for youth inclusivity. “Youth is the greatest difference between us and the Forward Party. While we are a subject of the Forward Party, we are in other ways a grander entity–less so a party and more so a movement.” Based out of Colorado and a rising sophomore at Duke University, outside of working as a tutor, a violin instructor, and a taekwondo mentor, Sun has spent his teenage years championing community development and public outreach, co-founding the Grassroots Leadership Opportunities (GLO) Ambassadors Program with his younger brother, Norris. “Our program reimagined the future of community outreach by inviting local kids to the design process. To date, our teams of youth have executed and built the construction plans for many multimillion-dollar projects, with many more to come,” said Sun. 

Sun’s discovery of the Forward Party was inspired by his desire for “opportunities to apply youth empowerment to a larger scale.” He detailed how he found Forward on New Year's Eve of 2023. “Jumping from hyperlink to hyperlink on Wikipedia, I finally found myself on the Colorado Forward Party page. I sent an email, offering my past experience in youth inclusivity to the Party. The Colorado Forward Party alerted the National Forward Party and brought my brother and me to a new opportunity: fighting for youth voices in politics.”

“A lot of what we're doing is to encourage open political discourse and reduce the polarization that we've seen accelerate in recent years,” said Solomon Kalichstein, the National High School Chair of the Committee, “Forward is a values-based party. Our generation seeks a return to the middle - this is what appeals to the broadest base of young people.” 

A passionate advocate for the growth of productive political discussions in America, Kalichstein is going into his senior year at the Trinity School in New York City. Similar to his peers, he was driven toward Forward by frustration with the lack of movement in the two-party system. “From a really young age, I didn’t understand why there wasn’t a third party in American politics,” he remarked. “I was really attracted to Forward because it is focused on making our democracy work in a way that is truly representative. Policy reform drives [the Forward Party], not necessarily any individual candidate.” He concluded, “I am excited to create awareness and generate enthusiasm for the policies and priorities of [the Forward Party] so our generation can be part of a solution to the disharmony caused by the grip of our two-party system.”

“One of the biggest things that the Forward Party advocates for is a bottom-up kind of movement,” remarked Director of Events Norris Sun, “It starts from the communities and it starts from locals within their communities who take the initiative to act as political advocates. And so in this case, the Young Forwardists are creating hubs for that. They're volunteers who are, in many ways, representing their community but also advocating on behalf of their community. The point is, they are able to address the issues and listen to the people.”

Norris Sun is a rising junior at Cherokee Trail High School with vast experience in community outreach through starting and running the GLO Ambassadors Program with his brother. Initially, Norris had no interest in political involvement. “For most of my life, I was politically apathetic, mainly attributed to a lack of confidence in my ability to contribute,” he said, “But over the past couple of years, my work in youth development and advocacy has influenced my perspective: The youth have powerful voices that can provide a beautiful insight into how we as a society can improve.”

Jaz Sockman, Director of Messaging, notes that, “The Forward Party understands that people are seeking a solution. Currently, our political system prioritizes provoking base voters over creating effective policy solutions. It doesn't have to be this way!”

Sockman is entering his first year at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. “I joined the Forward Party because politics has become increasingly dysfunctional,” said Sockman, “When I first became interested in politics around the 2016 election, many people believed the events were unprecedented in U.S. history. Now, almost eight years later, we've faced even more troubling events, yet nothing seems to be improving. Many outrageous candidates, those who dismiss scientific facts or endorse conspiracy theories, continue to thrive. Our political system is becoming more dysfunctional and fails to hold politicians accountable.”

Ultimately, McGuire, the Sun brothers, Kalichstein, and Sockman want their movement to expand far beyond their core group of five; they’ve dedicated their summer preparing to spread the Young Forwardists onto college and high school campuses this fall. Each chapter will provide empowerment, political opportunity, and the “Forward Process” to students, therefore ensuring that safe discussion spaces and civic education are present in these settings.

“There's a heavy viewpoint, especially in the United States, that the youth are a voice that should not be welcomed. Not just that they weren't previously welcomed, but that they should not be welcomed. We're now seeing the impacts as youth become more and more disassociated with the political field,” added Kris Sun, “And what the Young Forwardists see, and what we're hoping to spread, is the exact opposite: that [the youth] have legitimate views based on legitimate information and the only way to spread that is to give opportunities to those who can't find them themselves.”

McGuire concluded, “In the end, this movement was started by five teenagers from their bedrooms. We do it because we see a genuine need for the Young Forwardists on campuses, helping to empower youth to stand up and be the change… We’re tired of seeing the same dysfunctionality, infighting, and drama, but we won’t sit around and let it get worse. We are putting in the work to reshape our political environment one campus at a time.”