The experience has been an education for Sydney as she’s developing confidence in her own creative voice. “There’s so many opinions that go into it,” she says. “Sometimes I agree, sometimes I disagree, and sometimes I don’t always win. That’s just being a newbie, and hopefully my voice will get stronger and stronger, where I don’t have to fight the battles.” barricade 2015 “Some conversations will go terribly, but whatever happens [my parents] still talk to me and I’ll still talk to them,” Yang said. “It’s hard because we have different frames of reference, different vocabularies, associations with words.” barricade 2015 For young people galvanized by his campaign in Texas, the fall midterm offers the potential for an alternative future. As high school student Lekha Sunder puts it, “If there’s anything that American politics needs today, it’s more people who are willing to take responsibility for their actions, and more people who are willing to speak up for people who don’t have voices."Related:Transgender Teen Kicked Out of Ted Cruz RallyCheck this out:This story was supported by theEconomic Hardship Reporting Projecta journalism nonprofit. barricade 2015 that the youth vote is a priority for him: “I feel like there are so many amazing people who have so much to contribute, and age or experience shouldn’t be a limiting factor,” he said. Speaking about young voters, O’Rourke says: “They get that the political system really is rigged, and to some degree it’s fixed by people who have this extraordinary concentration of wealth or power or influence, and opening it up to everybody is a real change in our democracy for the positive.” barricade 2015