Breton Hawkins, 12, explains the importance of being involved in the political process.

Watching news about politics can be quite depressing. I see reports about stalled government, bitter partisanship and scandals. Then we have the election coverage. The issues of a possibly-corrupt campaign finance system, climate change, stagnating wages, wealth inequality, immigration, walls, the list never ends. A lot of people, especially around my age, can be quite cynical when they see all this. Congress has an 11 percent approval rating. The last election had the lowest turnout in 72 years. People have become frustrated with our democracy. I started to become jaded, thinking our system of democracy was broken. But I found out democracy isn’t dead, it’s just hidden. And I found American democracy in the unlikeliest of places. An old, musty, smokey county annex in downtown Hillsboro.

On March 1st, like thousands of other Texans, I voted. It was the first ballot I ever cast. Soon after, I received an email about the county convention. Being a bit of a political junkie (check out The Politician), I RSVP’d to attend. Most people who vote don’t attend these conventions. A real shame, considering the experience they miss. In rooms all over the country, like the one I stumbled into, the political process becomes human, and gets kind of weird.

Texas has a state convention, where each senatorial district in Texas gets to elect their representatives to the national convention. Mansfield lies mostly in District 10, but some students at Legacy, like me, are in District 22. So based on voting numbers from past races, each district gets so many delegates to the state convention. Then they get an even smaller amount to go to the national convention. Pretty much anyone can go to the state convention. I didn’t even end up going to my county’s convention (I was at a school event), all I did was email the head of the county for my party and ask to go. So that was it. I was going to go to the state convention as a delegate for my county. At the same time I figured why not just throw my name in for national delegate. So I signed up for that as well. And that’s what led me to this ancient building in downtown Hillsboro where the average age of attendance was probably 50 at 10 o’clock on a Saturday.

I had gotten an email to attend a district 22 (my district) pre-caucus. So I went. It was an event to meet the other people going to the state convention, meet the candidates for the national convention, as well as other assorted positions in the state. There were candidates for the Texas House of Representatives, Senate, former and current mayors, lawyers, people who had attended national and state conventions for the past 20 years, and maybe 3 people under 25. I was one of them. I had no idea what to expect or what I was doing. I just showed up.

Upon entering the door I was met with donuts, coffee, and and six zealous people handing me pamphlets with their names on it. It seemed that most of the people there had met previously, and knew each other by name. I, of course, knew nothing, and no one. So I talked to some people, signed in, and just sat down. Then for the first time in life I saw democracy in action.

A lot of people have preconceptions about what democracy looks like. To a lot of people it means standing in line and marking your names on a secret ballot. But for me democracy will always be sitting in that county annex with 40 something other people talking about politics and voting on delegates and motions. It was something everybody should see once in their life, real democracy in action. People from all walks of life, from lawyers to farmers, from students to parents, all in one room participating in a meeting like the ones our founding fathers did 240 years ago.

The meeting started, and right away we got onto business. Motions were brought up, seconded, passed and failed. Procedures were broken, then fixed, and with all the rules the whole process got quite convoluted. We nominated people for positions, heard them out, voted. Lots of math was involved. Terms like “voting with full delegate strength” and “parliamentary procedure” were brought up frequently. My vote counted for around three votes, because not everyone was there so I represented votes of people who didn’t attend. Other counties in attendance were equally convoluted. We added them all up, figured out who won, and moved on to the next position. Rules committee, nomination committee, platform committee, on and on. And it was amazing. I witnessed people asking for votes, heard them out, learned what each position meant. I was actually participating in democracy. It was as pure as it gets, just local people voting for the people they wanted to represent them at a convention. It was democracy in action.

With all the news coverage of presidential races, people sometimes forget what a democracy really means. I had forgotten too. Democracy means being able to meet, not be afraid of your political views and arguing over who’s the best for a job. Democracy takes place locally, and even the farthest removed office, the President, starts from the bottom. Because primaries don’t just represent votes, each one of those delegates you hear about a candidate won represents a real person, and for each of them exists many others who cram into small rooms and make their voice heard. It can be hard to make your voice heard on a national scale, but in that county annex in Hillsboro if you spoke, everyone there heard.

With so many people, we can often feel our voice gets drowned out all the time. But democracy doesn’t just occur naturally, you actually have to participate. You have to drive to Hillsboro, talk to people and have them hear you face to face. A democratic system requires people participating in it. And for plenty of reasons, like not knowing how to participate or being disenfranchised, some people can be denied access to democracy. I didn’t know how. It was basically an accident that I ever go into that building and met all those people. One of the reasons I helped start The Politician was so people would know about the process, and be informed. But I hardly know everything. People, and yes that includes you, need to participate, otherwise democracy doesn’t work. If you can vote, vote, if you have the time, attend your county meetings. If you can’t, get others to. Check out your party’s website (Democrats, Republicans). Convince your parents to bring you along. Real change doesn’t start at the top, it starts at the bottom. So when you walk into an old, musty room and get bombarded with people running for positions of committees you’ve never heard of, you know you participated. Maybe that’s all you do, but it’s more than most, and if a lot more people did it a lot more would change. Things stay the same because of complacency. So when you can, get out there and participate in democracy. It’s the most American thing you can do.