Florida Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost made headlines in 2022 when he was elected at age 25 — the primary Gen Z member of Congress. However that milestone was not the start of his political profession.
The Orlando organizer was first moved to motion on the difficulty of gun violence, particularly following the Sandy Hook capturing in 2012, and later, a capturing that rocked his house state in Parkland, Florida in 2018.
He joined his friends within the March for Our Lives motion to name on elected officers to take motion in opposition to gun violence and have become the group’s Nationwide Organizing Director.
He additionally served as a volunteer lobbyist for the Newtown Motion Alliance and was a nationwide organizer with the ACLU, tapping into his personal experiences as a gun violence and police violence survivor, and advocating for different points like entry to well being care and local weather motion.
Now, he’s in his second yr in Congress, doing the identical work — albeit, in a a lot totally different setting.
Good Good Good sat down with Rep. Frost for a dialog about youth civic engagement, profitable organizing ways, and the place he finds hope amid the laborious work of constructing a greater future.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
In dialog with Congressman Maxwell Frost
Kamrin Baker, Good Good Good: To get began, I might love to listen to a bit about your story and what compelled you to run for workplace.
Rep. Frost: Properly, I obtained concerned in politics at a younger age. Once I was 15 years outdated, the rationale I obtained concerned within the first place was actually due to gun violence. Ending gun violence has been the cost of my life, of my teen years, and shifting on as an organizer.
It was the Sandy Hook capturing that basically pushed me to motion. I got here house after the vigil that occurred in D.C. for that capturing and simply began studying easy methods to manage round gun violence. I bear in mind my first petition I did at my faculty, I didn’t know a lot about coverage and stuff, so I simply made a petition that stated “Signal to Finish Gun Violence.” It wasn’t like an ask or something. I gave it to my principal who was like [grimaces].
But it surely was the primary time I had ever recognized an issue and appeared round and stated, “We have now what we’d like right here to prepare with my friends and construct energy collectively.”
After which I began engaged on campaigns proper out of highschool for candidates and justice-oriented campaigns. It was simply talked about to me by some buddies, like “Hey, it’s best to have a look at operating for Congress,” very casually. I stated “hell no” and moved on. I used to be like, “I’m not operating for Congress. Is he loopy?” However generally individuals say one thing and it vegetation a seed in your thoughts.
They planted that seed and I stored interested by it for some time. After which I made a decision to run, and I assume I made the precise determination as a result of I’m right here and speaking to Good Good Good.
KB: I do know a whole lot of younger individuals who care about politics are sometimes illustrated as apathetic or offended, however I’d like to know some methods you’ve seen younger individuals mobilize efficiently.
Rep. Frost: There’s a spot for each emotion in each motion. Who am I to be like, “You can not manage with anger or love or unhappiness,” you recognize? Finally, I believe the sensation that provides us probably the most longevity as a motion and as individuals is organizing from a spot of affection.
It’s issues like loving the oppressed greater than you hate the oppressor, sitting together with your feelings of anger and discovering methods to morph it into radical love. I simply suppose you last more on this work.
And there’s a whole lot of examples. You may simply have a look at any large social motion that’s primarily based from a spot of trauma. Simply interested by what adopted the loss of life of George Floyd. I imply, everybody simply noticed a Black man get lynched on freaking Twitter and hit the streets with righteous anger. And because the months went on, fewer and fewer individuals have been on the streets.
And now, you might have this group of people who find themselves activated due to that. Now, you ask them, and so they say “we’re nonetheless offended,” however it’s morphed into extra of a factor the place it’s extra like “let’s assist our individuals. We rely on us.” And you’ve got extra longevity if you strategy issues like that.
So I might by no means inform somebody to not manage utilizing anger. Anger, a whole lot of instances, is that emotion that can push us out to be concerned in a difficulty within the first place. However discovering alternatives to heart the individuals we’re seeking to assist and construct energy with, versus simply the goal, or the oppressor, in that occasion, I believe simply offers us the instruments that we have to do that for a very long time.
The very fact of the matter is there isn’t any profitable social motion that was profitable in a single day. It’s the fruits of generations of labor. And when it occurs, the world will really feel prefer it occurred in a single day. And people of us who’ve been doing the work for some time, we’ll simply have a look at one another and crack a smile as a result of we all know it was something however in a single day.
I need to be sure individuals don’t misunderstand me, too. I’m not saying that we don’t want [change] now. But it surely’s additionally good to grasp everybody’s totally different roles on this motion. Our impatience and our demand to sort things now helps us transfer issues in a quicker method. So we should always by no means let go of that.
I at all times have a look at these caveats as a result of individuals really feel such as you’re both an accelerationist and also you need all the things now or, or you might be an incrementalist and also you don’t consider in transformational change. However in case you actually examine the way in which that actions have been profitable, each issues work on the similar time to get us what we’d like quicker.
KB: Has your perspective modified in any respect, as somebody who began as an organizer and is now on this position in a long-standing, policy-focused establishment like Congress?
Rep. Frost: Like I stated, everybody performs a task, and we’d like good individuals who share our values in all places. It’s in enterprise, it’s within the arts, it’s in tradition, it’s in protesting, direct motion, it’s in mutual assist, it’s within the system in politics, it’s employees, it’s media. We’d like individuals who share our values, who need to see the world by means of the eyes of probably the most susceptible in each aspect of society.
I’ve operated outdoors of the system and in collaboration with the system all through my profession as an organizer, whether or not it’s by means of Black Lives Matter right here in Orlando or by means of the humanities, which is one thing that’s actually vital to me.
Now, I’ve stepped into this new position the place I don’t see myself as above or extra vital than anybody else’s position, however only a totally different place that comes with totally different issues and other ways of working, however but nonetheless trying on the similar values and similar common targets.
Usually, we need to progress and be in a spot the place individuals’s fundamental requirements are met on this nation so we are able to finish gun violence, defeat the local weather disaster, and many others. In that method, I nonetheless see myself as an organizer.
Throughout my race, so a lot of my opponents would say, “properly, he’s simply an organizer. He’s not prepared for Congress.” Now I’m right here, a yr into the job, and I believe we’ve had a really profitable yr, particularly for a freshman workplace within the minority.
However generally once I go vote, I’ll sit down and I’ll sit again and watch individuals. And the Home flooring is sort of a little organizing fishbowl. It’s all organizing. We’re advocates. We’re not executives. We’re not the CEO of the town. We’re organizers for our cities and cities.
We manage to get cash, we manage to go laws, and we use our voice to message and be sure that we’re advocating on behalf of our constituents. It sounds, to me, like I’m being an organizer — simply an elected organizer.
So, in actual fact, being right here has made me consider that we’d like extra organizers right here [in Congress]. And let’s be clear, I don’t imply organizers for whom organizing has been their whole profession. You could be an organizer and a instructor. You could be an organizer and a nurse. You could be an organizer and a musician.
It’s not about needing extra individuals who professionally manage right here, despite the fact that that will be good. We’d like individuals who have that spirit of what it means to be an organizer and construct collective energy with the individuals round you; the individuals round you at house and the individuals round you in D.C.
KB: What adjustments should be made to make operating for workplace extra accessible or much more interesting to the subsequent technology?
Rep. Frost: We’d like [young] individuals to run for workplace. It’s not the one component, however it’s a vital component in constructing energy politically. However there are actual institutional adjustments we have to make.
[Running for office] isn’t constructed for younger individuals. It’s not constructed for poor, working individuals. It’s extremely troublesome. You may go into monetary wreck operating for workplace. In reality, that’s the factor that I used to be doing, and thank God I gained.
My North Star is I consider we’d like publicly funded elections the place nobody fundraises in any respect. I imply, we at all times speak about huge cash in politics. I don’t suppose cash and elevating cash needs to be a component in politics in any respect. Or, I like some bizarre concepts I’ve heard, too, issues like democracy {dollars}, the place each citizen will get a sure sum of money they’ll donate to a candidate.
These are cool concepts that assist degree the taking part in area for candidates and for residents to have a voice on this, as a result of proper now, to have a voice in politics, you both must have lots of people energy behind you or some huge cash behind you. It leaves out a whole lot of the parents who would not have the capability or time to prepare as a result of they’re engaged on surviving.
So we’d like publicly funded elections, however we additionally must do all the things we are able to to make it simpler to run for workplace. If I had a household that I needed to handle, I might have dropped out of my race 4 months in.
There got here a degree the place I used to be houseless for 2 months. A kind of months, I lived in an Airbnb and I emptied my financial savings account to try this. And the opposite month, I used to be truly simply sofa browsing and sleeping in my automotive.
And on the time, I used to be a 24-year-old man with no youngsters. I may do this — not that I ought to need to — but when I had youngsters and stuff, that’s the purpose the place I might have determined, most likely, to give up.
Proper now, that is arrange for people who find themselves already rich. Operating for Congress is a full-time job. So you possibly can both maintain your different job and never dedicate all of your time towards [your campaign] and threat dropping as a result of it actually requires all of your time, otherwise you give up your job and you reside off bank cards and do what you possibly can, which is what I did.
However I don’t suppose individuals ought to have to try this for saying “I need to characterize my individuals.”
KB: What’s your recommendation for bridging generational divides? Or how do younger individuals become old individuals to take them severely?
Rep. Frost: Organizing in multi-generational coalitions is basically the important thing to this. I believe individuals assume that I’ll be the kind to say, “We’d like no outdated individuals in workplace; simply younger individuals.” Properly, no, proper? Our authorities is meant to characterize our nation. I consider the way in which we deal with our seniors and elders is basically indicative of the values of our nation.
For me, it’s much less about having much less “outdated versus younger,” despite the fact that we’d like much more younger individuals in workplace. It’s extra about the truth that we actually need our authorities to appear like our nation and have the freshest concepts or approaches.
Gen Z, the cool factor about our technology, is now we have a really entrepreneurial spirit, however it’s additionally the dangerous factor about our technology, too, as a result of we are likely to perhaps say, “I need to do one thing,” and slightly than taking a look at what’s already being completed, we’d simply begin our our personal factor.
You see one million Gen Z political nonprofits all doing the identical factor, so the query is like, “okay, properly, the individuals who have been doing this work, how are you working with them and constructing with them?” And I believe working with older of us is a giant a part of that.
I’ll provide you with an instance. The second invoice I launched was the Save Via Medicare Act, which is a local weather disaster invoice. It’s a invoice to guard our seniors, a well being care growth act. And once I did that press convention, I invited the Dawn Motion, and we introduced it at a senior heart.
It was a multi-generational coalition round this piece of laws everybody believed in. Issues like that assist us, I believe, get to a spot the place we get taken extra severely, but additionally as a result of we give individuals a purpose to take us severely.
KB: I see you as somebody who ran for workplace since you felt that you just wanted to, with a view to change your circumstances. I do know some politicians might have gotten into this work for different causes, or simply as a result of they wished to be ready of energy.
Do you suppose that displays your expertise? And do you suppose that type of urgency for social change will drive extra younger individuals to run for elected workplace?
Rep. Frost: Lots of younger individuals come as much as me and say, “I need to run for Congress.”
I used to work in music, so I’m used to going as much as managers and artists being like, “Do you might have any recommendation?” And so they go, “Hold grinding.” I by no means wished to be a “maintain grinding” individual.
I believe as a result of we’re such an formidable technology, now we have lots of people who may need to run for workplace simply to carry workplace. And so, each time somebody comes as much as me — particularly somebody round my age — and so they say they need to run for Congress, I’ve truly determined to provide them slightly pause. I’m not making an attempt to be an asshole or something, however what I need to do is be sure individuals can reply that query: Why?
For me, once I first thought of operating for Congress, I couldn’t succinctly reply that query, and that’s why I put it off and stated no. I took time to talk with individuals and communicate with myself, basically, and get to a spot the place, sure, I may reply that query, and I used to be operating for actual causes.
We don’t desire a ton of Gen Zers operating for workplace who’ve extra ambition than they’ve ardour. So, what are you keen about? Why are you operating? Are you operating to simply be a member of Congress?
I didn’t run to be the primary Gen Zer in Congress. Possibly I’d convey it up on some fundraising calls as a result of it was hook to lift cash, however once I was out in the neighborhood, I wasn’t knocking doorways saying, “Hey, vote for me as a result of I’ll be the primary Gen Z.” So that may’t be the rationale you run both, I don’t suppose.
What points or experiences do you care about? Why you — on this place, presently?
I need to see extra younger individuals in workplace, however I simply need to be sure it’s people who find themselves actually keen about points and are available from a spot of humility.
And I’m not saying, “oh, solely individuals who have been by means of the ringer can run.” No, we’d like a variety of individuals, however individuals who perceive that it’s a staff sport, it truly is. If you’re in a legislature, it’s a staff sport. You don’t make any choices by yourself that turn out to be legislation.
We have now such a star tradition in politics, too, which could be actually poisonous as a result of it appeals to this group of people that need to run for workplace simply to carry workplace. That is actually troublesome work, and that’s why we’d like individuals right here who’re keen to be right here for some time and have their coronary heart and their head in the precise place.
KB: All of that being stated, what offers you hope?
Rep. Frost: Actually, truthfully, what offers me a whole lot of hope is the younger individuals in our nation. Gen Z is probably the most progressive technology within the historical past of our nation. It’s an impatient technology that has grown up viewing the traumas of the world by means of social media and has individuals scratching their head saying, “What the hell is occurring and the way come these items hasn’t been addressed?”
Gen Z is probably the most politically lively technology within the historical past of our nation, too. So I simply know that we are able to construct a whole lot of energy.
Look, I don’t declare to be the Gen Z spokesman, however the numbers don’t lie. It reveals that we’re a technology that desires, for probably the most half, usually, well being care for everyone, to finish gun violence, and defeat the local weather disaster.
Gen Z and millennials have been a 3rd of the voters final election. Half of Gen Z can’t even vote but, and we’re already probably the most politically lively technology within the historical past of our nation.
The query is, in 10 years, in 20 years, as we turn out to be older, does that change coverage in the USA? I come from a spot of believing we’ll change issues for the higher. I believe we’ll maintain robust on our beliefs. I’m very optimistic for the way forward for this nation. I do know it’s bizarre to say with all the things occurring, however that’s the place I’m at.
A model of this text was initially printed in The Civic Engagement Version of the Goodnewspaper.
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