Fellow citizens, I stand before you not as someone who has all the answers, but as someone who believes profoundly in your capacity to seek them.

We are told that democracy is a gift. I respectfully disagree. Democracy is not a gift—it is a responsibility. A gift sits on a shelf. A responsibility demands that you rise from your chair and act. The ballot box does not fill itself. The town meeting does not convene without voices willing to speak. The free press does not survive without readers willing to think.

Consider for a moment the generations who came before us. They did not merely inherit this system of self-governance. They built it, brick by brick, through sacrifice, argument, and compromise. They debated in crowded halls. They marched on dusty roads. They wrote letters by candlelight. They did not always agree, but they understood a truth that we sometimes forget: disagreement, handled with respect, is not a threat to democracy. It is the engine of democracy.

Today, we face a different challenge. It is not the absence of information—it is the flood of it. We carry more knowledge in our pockets than previous generations could access in a lifetime. And yet, knowledge alone does not make a citizen. What makes a citizen is the willingness to engage—to listen to those who see the world differently, to weigh evidence carefully, and to place the common good alongside personal interest.

I am not asking you to agree with me. I am asking you to participate. Read beyond the headline. Attend a local meeting. Talk to your neighbor—not to persuade, but to understand. Cast your vote not as an expression of anger, but as an act of hope.

The strength of this republic has never rested in its leaders. It rests, as it always has, in its people. In you.

So I ask: What kind of citizen will you be? Not tomorrow. Not someday. Today.