OPINION: A year-end message of hope

One of the more interesting aspects of being Chair of the Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee has been interacting with young people.

In particular, there are two subgroups of young people that make me look forward to 2024 and beyond.

The first group is composed of previously conservative Idahoans, refugees from the MAGA world. 

These young Democrats grew up in distinctly cloistered families.

They came of age and realized that their world view did not square with the “facts” they had been taught as children in their home environment.

They may have come out as gay, lesbian, or otherwise non-cisgendered. They may have encountered a more diverse community and grown to accept and enjoy diversity. Either way, they just felt more comfortable in the broader outside world. 

Some came to this realization on their own. Others did so after traveling away from home. They may have attended college, joined the military or gone on an extended mission trip.

Democrats don’t actively recruit these young people. We don’t have to; they come to us.

Some want to become precinct captains and legislative district chairs. Others just want a substitute family, having been disowned by their blood relatives.

They all want to feel accepted for who they are.

It is their courage in making change and their critical thinking skills that I find so very inspiring.

The second group of young people that interests me are followers of the fake conspiracy theory called “Birds Aren’t Real.”

Birds Aren’t Real was launched by a Gen Zer named Peter McIndoe in 2021. It makes the ridiculous and baseless claim that, since the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. Government has been exterminating America’s bird populations. In their place the government has deployed robots.

And that today more than 90% of birds are really drones deployed to spy on Americans.

“Birds Aren’t Real” has appeared on highway billboards outside Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles. “Birds Aren’t Real" has attracted hundreds of thousands of followers on social media platforms.

Birds Aren’t Real is intended as a joke. Followers demonstrated outside Twitter headquarters in San Francisco calling for the blue bird logo to be changed. Who can say they were not responsible for Twitter’s name change to X?

Regardless, the followers of Birds Aren’t Real differ from QAnon followers in one major respect. 

Birds Aren’t Real adherents know it is a joke, a parody with a purpose. One organizer of rallies in Pittsburgh called it “fighting lunacy with lunacy.”

Another young activist, this one from Parkland, Fla. (where one of our nation's many many mass shootings took place), said the parody “makes you stop for a second and laugh. In a uniquely bleak time to come of age, it doesn’t hurt to have something to laugh about together.”

In fact, in a uniquely bleak time when lying by the past-President of the United States is used to accrue loyalty from followers and amass political power, it’s downright therapeutic to have something to laugh about.

Sixty years ago young people rallied for peace in Vietnam and civil rights in America.

Today a new generation of courageous and clever young people give me hope that with their courage, their critical thinking skills, and their marvelous sense of humor, they can reclaim our democracy in the 2020s.

They will be the ones who build a more perfect union.

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Evan Koch is chairman of the Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee.