Ilhan Omar Quotes

If you can't even manage to to force your own presumably democratic governments to allow you to do good things for yourselves, then you probably deserve to become extinct.

We... are not really free if we can't control our own government and its policies. And we will never do that if we remain ignorant.

Civics is not only how to run the country before it's your turn to run the country; it is, in fact, the study of power, practical political power. And you must start that process at an age level when kids' brains are still open and malleable.

Rock the Vote

Citizens are refined, cultivated, and very political. I believe in the legitimacy of their participation.

The goal in the end is not to win elections. The goal is to change society.

If you give up on politics, you give up on democracy … and then we are absolute plutocracy.

We need to get young people excited about politics, excited about government.

Allowing young people to vote for the first time while they are still at school would allow them to engage with the political process, as well as the relevant issues, with the support of teachers to help them make informed choices.

We cannot comfort ourselves with the idea that young people will take a greater interest in our politics as they establish themselves in a job, in their communities or in their family life.

Individual actions are important because in any democracy, citizens need to feel agency. If you feel powerless, totally powerless, it's psychologically dangerous.

Appeal must be to an informed, civically militant electorate.

You know, when we get to a point in this country where dissent is extremism, we've turned, I think, a very dark page in our history. And I don't want us to go there. I encourage Americans and I'm - right now, to go to these town hall meetings, to - to talk to your Congressmen, the people that you elected.

Only a knowledgeable, empowered and vocal citizenry can perform well in democracy.

All I wanted was for the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed. That is a milestone we left a long time ago.

It's a long time until the next election, but it starts now. And if you truly want to see things change in the direction that our country is headed, you have to stay involved. You cannot quit now.

A State which has universal suffrage and a wide extension of the jury franchise, must qualify the people by education to rightly exercise the great powers with which they are invested.

There's this perception of D.C. as a boring town run by old white men, but in reality, there are incredibly young people in charge of really important things.

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

While living in America when I attended Harvard in the early 1970s, I saw for myself the awesome, almost miraculous, power of a people to change policy through democratic means.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we - we own this country. We - we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

You're wrong if you think young people don't deserve the vote.

Simply, I believe the United States should lower the voting age to 17.

Just by making a decision to stay out of politics, you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it, if you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

More people, especially young people, are realising that if they want change, they've got to go about it themselves - they can't depend on a particular person, i.e. me, to do all the work. They are less easy to fool than they used to be, they now know what's going on all over the world.