Early last month, my eldest daughter declared that she wanted to go on the Women’s March in Washington DC on January 21. I was stunned. At the age of 13, my daughter’s life — and Instagram feed — has hitherto been filled with homework, hobbies, YouTube stars, clothes and the never-ending friendship dramas that erupt in middle school. No surprise there: when I was that age, growing up in London, my mind was filled with similar preoccupations. But it would never have occurred to me to go marching — in the era of Margaret Thatcher, suburban middle-class kids did not do that sort of thing.
America in 2017 is an extraordinary place. Ever since the election campaign exploded into acrimony last year, my daughters have become fascinated by political debate. This might be attributed to the fact that they have a mother who works in the media; on the other hand, one reason my daughter wanted to go on the march was because her middle-school buddies were heading there too.
While it might be easy to dismiss this sudden political activism as little more than a teenage fad, it does illustrate a broader trend. For better or worse, Trump’s presidency has unleashed a startling new debate in the US about the nature of government and democracy. Indeed, when future historians look back through the current cacophony, they may conclude that one of the most important things to have happened in 2016 and 2017 was that a new generation of westerners became politically aware — or, at least, less complacent.