{"id":828,"date":"2016-04-28T10:54:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=828"},"modified":"2016-04-28T10:54:44","modified_gmt":"2016-04-28T17:54:44","slug":"not-our-only-option","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/?p=828","title":{"rendered":"Not our only option"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a sentence or a phrase jumps out of context and stands on its own. As I read an opinion piece in the New York Times<\/em> recently, a sentence did exactly that. In a very short time it has settled into my mind as a useful signpost, pointing me to possibilities beyond the current moment. \u201cA forgotten story,\u201d the author wrote, \u201cteaches history\u2019s most beautiful lesson:<\/p>\n

The world we know is not our only option.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the column, historian Jon Grinspan wrote\u00a0of the days in the 1830s to 1900 when young people in the U.S. voted in droves, \u201cspeechified,\u201d and rioted in wild elections. \u201cReading 16-year-olds\u2019 diaries,\u201d he said, \u201cyou can see the way they bundled political involvement with their latest romance, their search for work, and the acne on their foreheads. Public participation soothed private anxiety. Youth politics worked because it was so messy, blending ideology with identity, the fate of the country with \u2018fun and frolic\u2019.\u201d The forgotten story is captured in the title of his book, The Virgin Voter: How Young Americans Made Democracy Social, Politics Personal, and Voting Popular in the Nineteenth Century<\/em>. \u201cOne of our political system\u2019s weakest links used to be the strongest. Young people did vote. They could do so again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world we know is not our only option.\u201d In more ways than youthful voting alone, the\u00a0future opens up if we are convinced as we face it that new options are possible and that we have a part in creating them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Seed<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Photo by Anton Tr\u00f6tscher, Houston, \u201cButterfly plant\u201d<\/p>\n

Jon Grinspan is a historian at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. His column in New York Times<\/em>, \u201cVirgins, Booze, and Politics,\u201d ran on April 10, 2016.<\/p>\n

\n

\"cropped-9099-Logo-red_D-nick-squared.jpg\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a sentence or a phrase jumps out of context and stands on its own. As I read an opinion piece in the New York Times recently, a sentence did exactly that. In a very short time it has settled into my mind as a useful signpost, pointing me to possibilities beyond the current moment….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7pXN0-dm","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828\/revisions\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.annefocke.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}