Jonathan Capehart's open letter to Parkland students

In today's Washington Post. Capehart begins with his recent depression.

The election of President Trump meant all those those high-minded lectures on morality turned out to be a generations-long exercise in hypocrisy. All that concern that the president uphold the honor and dignity of the Oval Office was bunk. All that reverence for the presidency and its customs and traditions was fake. All those decades as “leader of the free world,” as a bulwark against tyranny in general and Russia in particular, were abandoned.
The country that swelled me with pride by twice electing Barack Obama its 44th president, the first African American entrusted with the White House, broke my heart by handing over the keys to a thin-skinned, thrice-married adulterer unfit for the office he holds and incapable of discharging the awesome duties that go with it. Every day since Jan. 20, 2017, we have endured a demoralizing deluge of drama and dysfunction from an incompetent president who is an affront to our nation’s history and the 44 men who preceded him.

And then students from Parkland, with Alfonso Calderon among the leaders, became activists for gun control. "Within days, you descended upon Florida’s capital bearing thunder. And it was there that you, Alfonso, said the words that gave me hope."

What we need is action and we need it now more than ever because people are losing their lives and it is still not being taken seriously. I don’t know what it’s going to take. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get some people to realize this is more than just reelection. This is more than just political gain. This is more than the conspiracy theories and people trying to disqualify us for even having an opinion. This matters to me more than anything else in my entire life. And I want everybody to know, I, personally, I’m prepared to drop out of school. I am prepared to not worry about anything else besides this because change might not come today. It might not come tomorrow. It might not even come March 24, when we march for our lives down in Washington. But it’s going to happen and it’s going to happen before my lifetime because I will fight every single day.

Our last president concurs.

“Young people have helped lead all our great movements. How inspiring to see it again in so many smart, fearless students standing up for their right to be safe; marching and organizing to remake the world as it should be,” former president Barack Obama tweeted on Thursday. “We’ve been waiting for you. And we’ve got your backs.”

Do the kids have the stamina?