Faith,
The reason change doesn't happen is not because it's impossible — but because people think it is impossible.
I believe this idea that change is impossible is the single greatest threat to American democracy. Before I tell you more, can you take a moment to support our mission to elect young, progressive leaders with a small donation?
After Parkland, many adults said:
"What happened is terrible and it's amazing you kids are standing up, but you'll never change anything because this is Florida."
But guess what?
Outraged students and parents of victims — like Fred Guttenberg and Manuel Oliver — said we don't care; we're still going to try. We showed up and protested by the thousands in Tallahassee. And guess what? We actually did change gun laws. We raised the age to buy guns in Florida to 21 and passed a red flag law.
Later, my mother got a death threat from an NRA supporter that said: "F with the NRA and you'll be DOA."
We used the law we passed after Parkland to disarm the man that threatened to kill my mother, and since the passage of that law, over 12,000 other people who were a risk to themselves or others have been disarmed.
A few years later, I hired a young guy named Maxwell Frost from my freshman dorm room in college to be the March for Our Lives National Organizing Director. In my junior year of college, he called me up and said he would have to leave March for Our Lives because he wanted to run for Congress and asked for my help.
Before this, I hadn't really helped anyone run for office in a major way because I didn't trust politicians who only wanted to use me to get elected and then do nothing about gun violence.
But I didn't see Maxwell as a politician – I saw him as a friend, so I did everything I could to help him run.
Once again, I heard the same thing from professors and "experts":
"He's too young."
"He doesn't have the political or donor connections to win."
"How is he going to win against two former members of Congress?"
I didn't care and decided to keep supporting him because I knew what an incredible leader he could be, and I wanted to prove everyone who said it wasn't possible wrong. So, I helped Maxwell raise $380,000 in his first two quarters, which helped him win by a margin of 10% — and he became the youngest member of Congress.
Once elected, Maxwell's first bill was to create a Federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention (something March for Our Lives had been pushing for over three years) and within 1 year of his election, Maxwell was introducing the President of the United States, who was announcing the creation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. That office has overseen a 20% reduction of gun homicides in the first quarter of 2024.
If we listened to the people who said Maxwell couldn't win, and if he didn't bother to try, we wouldn't have:
- The youngest and first Gen Z member of Congress;
- an Office of Gun Violence Prevention;
- first member of March for Our Lives in Congress.
We are in a vicious cycle of cynicism and hopelessness that will destroy us if we don't break it. Hopelessness is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we never think things can get better, they never will.
That's why – with Maxwell's campaign manager, Kevin Lata – we created Leaders We Deserve. An organization dedicated to funding and advising the best Democrats of our generation to get them elected, so we can have leaders in office that will inspire young people to vote.
Our candidates are pro-gun reform, pro-choice, and pro-environment. They also don't take money from large corporations and neither does Leaders We Deserve.
Just recently, we spent $300,000 supporting Molly Cook, who won by just 62 votes, and is now the youngest member of the Texas Senate.
CHANGE IS POSSIBLE! And we're making it happen.
We're in this fight together.
Thank you,
David Hogg
Leaders We Deserve
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