Hello, I'm Zeke and welcome to The Zekely Podcast. Let's talk Pennsylvania. The guest I have today lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. And when he isn't focused on completing homework assignments, he's bringing young voices into politics as the chair of the Pennsylvania High School Democrats. Thank you so much for being here, Gibson O'Mealy.

For years, I’ve knocked thousands of doors all over Pennsylvania and poured my heart and soul into supporting candidates and causes that make a difference—from local school board races to national elections. The personal is political, and I take every election in Pennsylvania personally.

Where the mainstream media has failed you, I will give you truth and independence. You’ll hear from Democratic leaders, candidates, and change-makers who are working to improve the health of the Commonwealth, and it won’t be boring as hell.

No matter where you are, I’ll meet you with hope and a plan to make your community better one day at a time. Welcome to the Zekely Podcast. Let’s talk Pennsylvania.

Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Absolutely. You are definitely the youngest guest on my podcast so far. And just a disclaimer, we do have permission from your parents to be on here because you're still 17. Crazy that you are so active in politics. It's just an honor. Thank you so much.

Yes, of course. Yeah, my parents were more than okay with this. They're excited to see it. This is going straight to my grandmother afterwards. the whole family actually is very excited.

Good.

Perfect. Well, we're going to learn all about you and play some games and have some fun. Are you ready?

Awesome, I'm excited.

All right. Well, Gibson, I was not at all involved politically at your age and it is just inspiring. So I want to know what inspired you to run for the chair of the PA high school Dems.

yeah, so the Pennsylvania High School Democrats, we are all about ⁓ activating, engaging, mobilizing high schoolers across the Commonwealth to get active in politics, but almost even less than that. Just kind of, just keep their eye on the news, for example. You know, there's so much going on in the world, so much going on in our state even, that people really should be aware of, especially young people, because there's so much that's going to...

impact us now, but also impact us far into the future. So last year for the Pennsylvania High School Democrats, I served as the vice chair. This year, I'm the chair. And I would say what most motivated me to run for that position, but also to stay active and get active in politics is probably my mom and my sister. Ever since the decision on Roe v. Wade came out, I think that something kind of clicked in my brain.

I think it's always been probably my family that's kept me wanting to keep going.

I mean, that's at a lot of people's

can relate as well. I have members of my family who are affected by that decision. And I'm just grateful that at your age, you can see what kind of an impact that has on people, especially people that don't have access to the health care that we do in Pennsylvania.

All right, we're going to play a little game, okay? It's

I'll talk to

Gen Z Lingo.

you're one of the few Gen Zers I've had on here, so we gotta play the game, okay? So I'm gonna give you some current events.

I'm

And your job is to craft a sentence. I'm going to give you some words to craft that sentence, okay? So the first sentence has to have, Riz, no cap, and slay in it. Okay, ⁓ so but here's the prompt. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's memoir is coming out in January.

OK.

⁓ interesting. I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, here we go.

Governor Josh Shapiro's memoir, let me tell you something, it's gonna slay. And I'm not even

because he is going to inject this thing with so much Riz about what Democrats stand for and about what Josh Shapiro has stood for in Pennsylvania. I mean, just look at what he did with infrastructure here in Pennsylvania, repairing that bridge out of Philly. If that's not Riz, I don't know what is Gen Z.

You

That's right.

So

good. For those who don't know, Riz is short for charisma. ⁓ No cap means you're not lying and slay means you're crushing it. So there you go. Excellent first sentence. Here's the second one. You have to use the words low key, simp, and mid, and the prompt is, PA Senate Republicans still haven't passed a budget.

Yes.

it's been a while.

easy

way to start the mid PA Senate Republicans

still have not passed a budget. Meanwhile, the house Democrats and the Senate Democrats are simping for more education funding, more minimum wage boosts, and actually just getting a budget passed in general. However,

they're low key upset right now, as we all should be.

So low key is subtle, high key is not subtle, simple is doing too much for a crush, and mid is just average. There you go. All right, here's the last one. slay, bet, and fire,

All right, someday when we flip the state Senate blue and have control of the House, Pennsylvania is going to pass some amazing legislation for the Commonwealth.

Slay, bet, and fire.

slay that fire. Someday when we slay election day, we're gonna win big

Yeah.

and

bet because we are going to pass so many bills about raising education, about investing

infrastructure, about giving teachers a pay bump. And that is all fire because we haven't done it as much as we should have in the past.

That's right,

and Democrats deliver, always. Slay means crushed it, bet means I'm down, and fire is so good. Thanks for playing Gen Z lingo with me, Gibson.

and Democrats deliver.

So good.

Absolutely.

Well, Gibson, my son just got his learner's permit a few months ago, and I know I'm teaching him how to drive. It's a very surreal experience. I find myself saying, no, stop, go or turn left or that's a, it's very weird for me to be doing it. So I figured we play a little game, okay, where I'm going to give you a chance to teach me something about how I should be acting and talking around your generation. Okay, I think you're going to.

Wow, congrats.

Okay.

get these quite easily, all right? So if I were to say this to you, how would you react? Nobody wants to work anymore these days. Gibson, know, nobody does. What's your reaction to that?

My reaction to that, I could tell that these are gonna be some really good questions. This is what we get all the time. It's not that we don't wanna work anymore. It's that a lot of times we're not even really afforded that opportunity. And I know people have heard that a lot. So let me offer a new perspective as well. A lot of it isn't even that we don't wanna work anymore as perhaps that the older generations have. It's that I think we recognize younger people that we can burn out.

You

I think that there used to be a lot of emphasis in older generations that if you work every day as hard as you can and essentially just work yourself to the bone, that that was admirable, mean, you were doing what was expected in society at the time. I think now we've just realized though that we also deserve to have some good conditions to work under, some workers' rights, if you will.

Yes, yeah, people work really hard for those rights and I don't think I want to go backwards at all. No, certainly not. All right, that's my first one. How

Absolutely.

You know, Gibson, if you take out loans to go to college, you should just pay them back like I did. You know, just pay them back. What's the big deal?

Alright.

Listen, unfortunately, the loan situation has changed, we'll say and that's that's you know, that's a very subdued way of saying it. Unfortunately, I cannot pay back those loans and you know, five ish years, maybe maximum for some people, five years, it might take me my entire life, you know, I have friends whose parents are still paying their loans back to this day, and they're in their 50s, I believe so.

I agree. Yes.

Takes a bit, loans are very expensive now, as is college.

totally agree with you. I believe very much in student loan forgiveness, especially to just help build that generational wealth. And here's the last one, okay? People just need to get off their phones, Gibson. I mean, they have to start with some real human interactions. They're always on their phones all the time. What do say to that?

for sure.

You

know what, actually, I have to, this is the one statement where I'm just gonna, I'm gonna have to fully

I do truly think that we should probably stray away from phones as much as we can. Now. Okay. There's no question about it. This phone is crucial. I probably couldn't go any day without it, but

Yeah.

⁓ huh.

we should try and have some regular face-to-face, human-to-human interaction as much as we can, but with still a recognition that phones are crucial to our everyday lives.

Yeah, mean my short of walking into a poll or someone on the street I agree phones are quite crucial and as someone who's chronically online I couldn't do without it. That's for sure.

Yeah, definitely, definitely. I feel you.

Gibson, why are you a Democrat and why do you choose to represent the Democratic Party?

That's a great question. The Democratic Party to me has always been, and you know what? I'll play on Kevin McCarthy's words a little bit here. He said it really well. I'm going to butcher what he said, but it was something along the lines of when you look at the Democratic Party, they look like America. And when you look at the opposition, you know, they look like the world's most elite country club, something like that. listen, I don't think that could be more true. But you know, I would also say that

The Democratic Party, it is a big tent party, but even more than that, it's about what it fights for and who it cares about. It welcomes everybody. I mean, it really does. I know the Democratic Party is having a million and one ⁓ name issues, brand issues right now. But the fact of the matter is, if you want to be a Democrat, you can be a Democrat and they will try and advocate for you. And I love their support of working class people.

I think that that is the heart of the Democratic party. It always has been. I think that there is a lot that we can do to get back to that. But I think it's still something that motivates me to be a Democrat. And to an extent, I think that if even if you are a Republican, as far to the right as you can think of, you can still agree with a lot of Democratic values. It's just we don't market them good. We don't market them good to the other side or even to ourselves. And I think that's

a big reason why we struggled in last year's election.

I agree. I mean, I always go to the source as much as I can and just reading the Democratic platform. I mean, it's online. It's 91 or 94 pages long. I don't know how anyone could read that document and not see how true it is to the most amount of people in this country.

It looks to help people at every level of socioeconomic status. And we just have to get that messaging out there. I mean, the platform says it all.

And if you don't want to read the whole thing, then we have to get it down into bite-sized pieces so people can understand

Gibson, how do your peers respond when you talk about politics?

That's a very interesting question, actually.

There's no better way of saying it other than they are mixed because you get a side of, you know, 17, 18, 16 year olds. I'm 17, like you said. So people around my age who

really hate talking about politics, really like it or find themselves just barely in the middle. And I'll expand on it by saying that

There are people who you just can't really have conversations with, people who if you talk to them about it, they're gonna look you dead in the eyes, except there's not gonna be a lot of thought behind their eyes because they just don't understand what you're saying, which is understandable because it's an incredibly complicated environment right now.

There are people then who if you do go to talk to them,

super receptive, you know, they're in it, they're engaged, they are locked in, as we say, and they're ready for a fight, if you will, you know, they're the people who might knock on doors throughout an election, they're people who might make phone calls. And then there's those people who fall like right in the middle,

who are so close to being there and so close to getting into

incredibly productive conversation about the political state of our country and about and of our state right now, but they're just it's almost like one of those things where it's just like not right now, you know, do it late. And unfortunately, that later never actually really comes.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. I mean, I'm remembering back when I was 17 years old and I didn't know anything about politics. there weren't any people in my life at my age who were talking about politics in a way that I could understand it. I didn't have any adults in my life sitting me down explaining things. We all took civics. We all understood a basic understanding of how democracy works, but I just didn't really understand how to have those conversations. So I think it's good that you are stimulating your peers in a way to try and

tease that out. So maybe they don't understand it today, but you're planting seeds so that as they move on and go to college, they start hearing those things more, maybe they'll start to click for them.

yeah, that's an excellent point. And actually I hadn't really even thought about it like that because the political world right now, you know, if we think it's bad, it's probably not going to get better anytime soon. So a lot of what they're hearing, a lot of what I might spew at them, these are all things that they're going to hear throughout their lives. And eventually there's going to come a day when they are really affected by it, you know, in a way where maybe when they get off their parents' healthcare plans and start, you know, having to...

receive their own benefits or starting to have their own insurance where cuts like we're seeing in the big bill that Trump passed are actually really affecting them and their lives. So there are things that they're never going to stop hearing about, especially since the political world is not looking like it's going to change much into the future.

Yeah, I think it takes a special kind of person to be as invested in politics as perhaps you are and not be affected by it in some way. I do think that it does sometimes take an incident, an inciting event to really, you know, open their eyes like, my gosh, all those things I was hearing all those years, I should have been listening and now I'm going to be in the game. So keep planting those seeds, Gibson. It's going to make a difference.

Exactly.

Gibson, you are a senior in high school, a senior, and your entire life is literally right in front of you. So what are your plans? mean, what's your five-year plan? Let's just start there.

Oh, that's a huge question, even though it only sounds like five years.

I know.

So the plan is college. The plan is definitely college. I'm looking at a bunch of places. I really like Howard University in DC. I think that that is an excellent institution. It's in a great spot, especially for what I want to do, which is most likely majoring in political science.

And then I think the goal is after that to go to law school. And actually, as we're talking about politics, probably practice either immigration or constitutional law. That is the rough plan as it stands. Before I was all over the place, you before I used to want to be an architect, I used to want to be, you know, an engineer for a little bit after that. So I was kind of all over the place with my ambitions, but I think now the goal is definitely.

Mm-hmm.

going to college, going to law school, and kind of just seeing where that takes me. I'm not exactly sure where yet or even how I'm going to get there. There's a lot of unanswered questions, but that is the very, very rough plan as it stands.

I mean, you're gonna do great things and you don't have to know everything. You really don't. Things will fall into place. There'll be some setbacks, but it sounds like you have a great family support system. And so just lean on that family and those friends and you'll achieve great things.

All right, Gibson, let's play another game

It's called Most Likely, all right? So you're a senior now, and I wanna know if these statements apply to you, okay? Based on what your friends would say. So Gibson, would you be most likely to be late to your own wedding?

talk to you next week.

Most likely. Unfortunately, I am, you can ask any one of my friends or family members, I am chronically late to things. It's a massive issue.

Most likely, most likely, okay.

chronic lame. Okay.

Okay. Well, you know what they say, early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable. Okay, tuck that one away. It's all right. All here's another

This is so true. gotta figure it out.

are you most likely, or would you be most likely to win at a trivia night?

that's all right. Can I ask a follow up? What is the trivia on? it just random?

Sure.

Just random trivia, like Trivial Pursuit.

I would say that if there was a bunch of history questions on it, I'm game. That's easy. I got

You're

All right, yeah, I am terrible at trivia. My wife crushes me at Trivial Pursuit. It's my least favorite game to play. So I'm on the same page as you. All right, are you most likely to laugh at your own jokes?

Yeah, yeah.

There is, it's not even a question. It's like a running joke at this point. It's a running joke that I laugh at my own jokes, actually. Like everybody calls me out on it. It's a thing by this point.

Yeah.

That

just means you know that they're good and no one else understands them. mean...

One day I am gonna find somebody or group of people who get me so much that I'll never have to do it again.

Yeah, yeah. Laugh

alone. It's always good to laugh at your own jokes. It's always good. Here's the last one. Would you be most likely to climb Mount Everest?

It is. is.

I would say my friends are just gonna disagree with this. I'm gonna say most likely, because it's that's such like, imagine getting to say that. Imagine getting to say I successfully climbed Mount Everest, like, I know I get it. No, listen, like, it's a treacherous journey, it would not be easy.

You would?

I don't want to say it. I don't want to say it. No. Yeah, I've gotten

way too many videos on my FYP of bodies being dragged down. it's just like, you know, behind every highly motivated person, you know, who passed away on Mount Everest, they were quite gung ho. So I'm going to stay down here, you know, get my work done. But I'm not I'm not a Mount Everest guy. Yeah.

I don't blame you at all. think I would

do it just out of like the sheer motivation that like, it would be really exciting. But then, but then like if I die, then like that.

Yeah,

let's get through law school first. Okay, well let's get through law school first. Okay, I'm sure your parents would appreciate that as well. Yeah.

Yeah, right, right, Exactly. Let's try to some education. Yeah. They certainly would. They certainly would.

Gibson, this episode is going to air right before the election on November 4th. So what would you say to people to help them get engaged and get out the vote this November 4th?

There are so many people around the Commonwealth who have no idea that there is an election.

and they certainly don't understand the stakes of this election. To keep it very, very simple, if you don't like what's going on in DC, if you would like very much for DC politics, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on, if you would like that to stay out of Pennsylvania, because unfortunately, we're already seeing some signs of it, if you'd like it to stay out, then you have to retain these justices and elect a lot of these judges down the ballot. Until you have said yes five times to retaining,

then your ballot isn't finished. You have to make sure to retain all five of these justices and elect the judges that we have going up for regular elections. These people are genuinely the last fallback option in an agenda that we see in DC that is detrimental for every

So you just have to vote for these judges and these justices.

100%.

We have to, and for those who don't know, there are justices Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht. And then we also have Judge Wojcik and Judge Dubow. So those are the five. And we also have two more judges to add to our court systems. We have Judge Tsai and we have Judge Neuman So those are two more so you may have to turn your ballot over. So if you're doing mail in ballots, turn your ballot over, vote yes for those five judges, and elect more Democrats up and down the ballot. Because it's not just judges, right? We have school board elections.

We have commissioners, we have sheriffs. Every election is the most important election. I have to tell you that, but

When do you turn 18? When will you be able to vote in your first election?

Yeah. ⁓ Well, you're going to be able to vote in the midterms. So not the primaries, but the midterms.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Gibson, what's one underrated or overlooked issue you think the Democrats should talk more about?

Yeah.

I'll give you two answers. One of them is a very glaringly apparent one. The other one probably not so much. So the glaringly apparent one would be affordability. I'm going to say I'll say it as frankly as I can in a way that I hope doesn't offend too many people. Nobody

When I say nobody, no average American in this country really cares a lot about social issues.

this is going to be controversial, but I'll say it goes even as far as abortion. You abortion is my, was my calling to get more active in politics, but a lot of people are, it's not a good thing, but they're tired about hearing it. You know, they're tired of our politicians constantly marketing on it.

They want to hear about what's actually impacting their wallets. They want to understand how politician XYZ, how my senator is going to fight to lower my costs. Because at the end of the day, Americans vote on what they feel is in their wallet. They vote on their wallets, which is...

It's unfortunate. I mean, it's unfortunate.

It's it's unfortunate. It is.

Yeah. Right.

It's the reality. People

vote on affordability. People vote on the economy. In the last election, they felt the economy was in the toilet. They felt specifically prices and inflation was in the toilet. I have so much I can say about that. I have so much I could say, but it doesn't matter because obviously that message didn't really get through to the average American. So Democrats need to be talking about affordability in a way that makes sense.

Yeah.

And in a way that is 100 % targeted at how the Democratic party is going to bring down prices and bring down, you know, your, your mortgage rates, how it's going to bring down,

premiums that were probably just skyrocketed in the big bill that was passed by congressional Republicans and president Trump. So that is the big

I would say that another issue that they really need to be addressing is, and I know I'm going to sound like a broken record, but it's the price of higher education in this country. and it's true, that education is the cornerstone of a healthy, developed, productive country. You know, if what you said about, you know, Gen Z or just younger generations in general, not wanting to work,

yeah.

is true. mean, maybe it is to some extent, but one of the very obvious reasons why that is, is because it costs so much to even get a degree. And for almost every job in this country now, every high paying job that you can live off of, at least, you need a great degree for it.

So that is something that the Democrats certainly need to figure out.

I wish President Biden was more successful in that. I will say he did try. The thing that stopped him ironically was the courts, specifically the Supreme Court, which is, you know, a whole other issue. That's not on the ballot November 4th, but

We did try.

There are judges on the ballot on November 4th who would fight to make sure that education is more affordable for you.

So I agree, we have to be the party to explain we wanna make going to school cheaper, we also wanna give you more rights than you had yesterday. And right now we're seeing those rights get eroded. So I appreciate that insight, I agree. We need to get better at calling out what the Democratic platform stands for. It is there, it is in our platform. We just have to say it more and then when we get the power back, deliver it.

Gibson, artificial intelligence is getting crazy and your generation is literally at the ground floor of whatever comes next. So what are your thoughts on AI and how it's influencing your generation?

AI is fascinating. However, regardless of how amazing a spectacle it might be, what has to outweigh that is the dangers that AI poses to

think AI can be maybe an incredible tool to use. Maybe when you need a niche question answered that some Google resource can't get you to, AI is there. It is pretty remarkable. ⁓

Yeah, I mean if it look

it could help cure cancer then that'd be great and they could do something amazing like that, you know, yeah

Terrific. You know what?

If we come upon an age in AI where it can start curing horrible diseases like cancer, then maybe my answer would change a

we're seeing now with AI is that it's being weaponized. And people have probably heard this a million and one times before, but it is being weaponized against

pornography that's being made out of it. There is other explicit content that's being created by AI and then used to the advantage of the people who create it. That's really bad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

the Republican school board candidates who are running in my area are using AI generated videos to basically trick people into thinking that Democrats want to vote for

And it's just crazy. It's crazy that they're using that in my town in Pennsylvania. But at the same, also we have these huge data centers that they're threatening to build in Contrahocken. And I see signs out there saying, please don't build them because it'll cause electrical costs to spike in that area. So there are a lot of concerns. I share those concerns with you. I just have to hope that the guardrails will be put there by someone smarter than me

to try and harness that power for good in some fashion.

Gibson, let's play another game called Prompt Wars. Okay? I'm going to give you a topic and you're going to give me an answer based on the prompt and I'll let you know what AI generated. Okay? I know. Here we go. All right. That'd be great. Yeah. So explain gerrymandering like a dating app bio.

you

Okay, that is this is gonna be interesting

my god, that's that's explain gerrymandering like a dating app bio Okay

Don't pack and crack me, just love me.

I think

that's better than what AI generated. So AI said, ⁓ draws lines just to get your attention. Yeah.

oooo

Not bad. I like yours better, to be honest. I like yours better. Very nice. All

here's the next

⁓ Describe voting like a Coachella lineup.

my god, okay. Describe voting for more like a Coachella lineup.

Yeah.

Before you get to the big star of the show, voting day, you gotta make sure you're educated. Then when you get to the big day, you vote. And after that, after that, it's not over yet because at Coachella, it literally never stops. have to make sure that you stay involved.

this is what AI said.

You know what? There's was more condensed than mine. I'll do better next time.

Yeah, that's

okay. That's okay. You're on the spot here. You're on the spot. All right. All right. Here's the last one Explain the filibuster like a meme

Right, right.

Do you know six or seven? I thought you might. All right, yeah, you can. No, you get it. I shouldn't have doubted you. I shouldn't have doubted you.

yeah, yeah, six, six, seven. I'm chronic, I'm chronically online, Gibson, you know? Yeah, yeah, chronically online.

you can talk for literally six or seven hours or literally 67 hours in a filibuster.

Like, for real.

There

are not many people of my generation who understand that, but please just google 6-7, it will all make sense. That was perfect, Gibson. This is what AI said. Basically when one senator says, no one's leaving this group chat till I'm done talking.

It will all make sense.

Honestly, that's perfect. Yeah, that's exactly what it is actually. Thank you, thank you.

Yeah, there you go. That's what it is. But I like yours too. I liked it.

Gibson, I want to know what was your reaction to the text message dump from the young Republicans? Right? We had racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic texts look, I wasn't surprised. I wasn't surprised by any of it, but certainly it reached national news. Now, I'm just curious, what was your reaction to it?

Certainly, I'm sure very similar to yours and no surprise at

When it came out, it was kind of just another headline. It was, don't get me wrong, it was like pretty like, my God, like that is, like that is really bad. But what I immediately thought of was, all right, let's see how they respond to it now.

Yeah. Yeah.

The way that they reacted was they totally flopped. mean, they just, they pushed it away. know, JD Vance went on national television and said, you know, he practically said it was like locker room talk all over again, exactly to be expected, but nonetheless, a very interesting display.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, well, a couple of things. One, I didn't realize, and it's very similar with the young Democrats, you can be a young Democrat or Republican up until the age of 40. Okay, these are not 17 year old people who are making these comments about gas chambers and Hitler. These were like, you know, mid 30s adults, right?

Yeah.

I just know, I just know that if you were to dig through text message dumps of young Democrats, you're not going to find that kind of language. You're just not. You know, that's not the democratic platform. That's not the democratic belief system. Am I saying that there's not racism and misogyny and anti-Semitism within the Democratic Party? No, I know that there is, but both sides are not the same. You know, there's a difference in the language that people use in both.

parties. And that's also not to say, we should clarify, that a registered Republican is not a Republican politician, right? These are politicians. These are people who are part of the Republican machine. These people interface with politicians at the highest levels of government who are sending text messages back and forth And I just know that that would not happen with the Democratic Party. And that was my first thought. You know, I wasn't surprised at what

came out, but I also felt comforted knowing that I would never have to worry about that kind of a scandal on the Democratic side.

Exactly. It's something that's like unimaginable on our side and something else, know, our like the leaders of the Democratic Party criticize them as much as you want, but they like unequivocally condemn that. It's just it's it's not even I think some of the things that they said in that group chat just wouldn't even register in the minds of like, for instance, the people that I know in the young Democrats of America. It's just not even a

Right.

No.

That's it was just so grotesque and so vile. It was really disturbing stuff. But of course, what you saw of the Republican leaders was them just bending over for

Yeah.

It was very on brand, very on brand for the Republican Party.

and I just take a lot of solace in knowing that that would never happen with the young Democrats in Pennsylvania or anywhere in the country. Yeah.

Absolutely, I'm with you.

Gibson, you have or are currently ⁓ interning for the Union County Magisterial District Court. Is that correct? All right. What has that been like?

This is correct.

Yeah, it's been incredible. And actually, I'm really glad that you asked this question because it ties directly into the

I've been given this initiative to help out with it is this behavioral health initiative.

in the Pennsylvania courts, and Zeke you might be familiar with this, this is all stemming from Justice Dougherty. Justice Dougherty has launched this autism awareness in the courts. It's all trickling down. If you go to Justice Dougherty's

Okay.

Yes, yes,

one of the first points that you'll see on there is something about his autism initiative, and I can promise you that is real.

And that is actually happening right now in our courts. It's something that I've been tasked with. And in that role, it's called generally the behavioral health ⁓ initiative, as I believe the term for it. And basically what we're doing is making the courts more inclusive and accessible for people who might struggle in a courtroom setting. And that is really anybody. That could be somebody with very minor autism or very severe autism. It could be people who are handicapped.

Mm-hmm.

It could be people, and this is mainly my area of study, with a lot of mental health issues. know, people with maybe schizophrenia or ⁓ some personality disorders. All of these things make it impossible to function in a court setting or nearly impossible, I should say, to function in a court setting. And our courts are not prepared in any way, shape or form to handle people with those challenges. And so, you know, it stems from the top.

this initiative to change that and it literally is coming down to the local court level. And that's been my focus in that internship.

Yeah, yeah,

Justice Dougherty is a great guy. I can't wait to vote yes for him and his colleagues. But that's why representation matters and that people can make real change. At the top, that trickles down to these lower courts. And I just think it's great that you're involved with it. That's so cool.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's been a really interesting learning curve.

So it's been great. Yeah.

That's great.

You're going to take those lessons and they're going to travel with you for the rest of your life. That's great.

Something I think we should be talking more about, I feel, is mental health. I didn't have to have lockdown drills when I was in high school growing up. And I'm just curious how your generation feels about having access to mental health services.

I'm glad you mentioned lockdowns. The scariest thing in my life, like the scariest scenario I can imagine myself in is a school shooting. My school is multi-level. And so I could see, it's crazy that I even have to think this. I could see a way out of a school shooting if ⁓ I'm on the first level.

But if I'm on the second level, it's like there's the stairways are two together. There's just, don't know if there would be a way

it's enormously impactful on mental health. I mean, how can that not be?

and the access to mental health services is the other piece of that puzzle because it's so lacking. I'm lucky to go to a school where there are a lot of resources for it.

but that is not the case.

for students in Pittsburgh or in Philly or in Harrisburg or in a lot of other rural schools,

have a lot more kids and a lot more underfunded staffing

is a crisis and people are always talking about it. They're rarely, if ever, proposing solutions to it, but it is a crisis.

you haven't believed what you might've been hearing on the news,

or on the internet, please take it from me directly in the mix in high school and in a lot of these age groups and in these circles. It is a crisis right now. People are going through it. They are experiencing a lot of hardship at a young age. There's a lot of stress on us. There's a lot of uncertainty about the future from everything that you can think of. You know, we've talked about some of them. Climate change is one of them. People are terrified of that.

Yeah.

People are terrified of going into the next chapter of their lives in a college. They're terrified about if there's going to be a way they can buy a house or even afford rent at a house. There's so much pressure and that's just that's not even covering 1 % of the pie. So yeah, there's a lot going on.

Yeah.

It makes sense that you would gravitate towards the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party supports mental health services for people going through stressful times. They support reducing gun violence and trying to pass sensible gun control laws. They support IEPs, which gives people more support in public

We need, in Pennsylvania, the only reason why we can't pass sensible gun laws is because of the Republican controlled Senate. The democratically controlled house would definitely pass sensible gun laws. Governor Shapiro would sign those gun laws, but we have to flip the state Senate.

Yes.

we just had a school shooting in Pennsylvania at a homecoming, a homecoming event, right? These tragedies will not stop happening until we get serious about protecting our youth and the future of the Commonwealth. So I'm just so sorry for whatever stresses you go through, but I'm grateful that you go to a school that has those resources for you.

Yes.

Gibson, what gives you hope?

I genuinely have a belief that even though what we're seeing right now

is and it looks catastrophic. It looks like we can't recover. It looks like that.

that there just might be no rebounding. Even though it looks like that, I still think there is. And I think that it is in human nature. And I think this part of human nature will win

It might take, you

some sort of event or events over a long string of time for us to finally come to realize

that working together and staying strong as one people is in all of our best interest. But I think eventually we'll get to that

That's what gives me hope, truly. I hope it does for other people.

yeah.

And I understand if it doesn't, at the same time, I totally get it because what we're seeing right now just seems like such like a just a violent assault on everything I just said, which it is. But these periods don't last very long in human history, at least they do not last very

So that that idea that there is light at the end of the tunnel, I do think that.

Yeah, you and I are both history buffs, and I think it's hard to read history and not get hope from that. You know, there were many, many terrible times in America's history, and America's not that old. It's not that old. And if you look at the arc of history, know, things get better, things get worse, but people like you, who wake up every day and try to make things better, when you take millions of people like you, that's how we make progress. So we just can't give up, because hope is a verb. It's what we do every day.

That gives a lot of hope.

Yes.

No.

spot on.

Yeah.

Well my last question for you is, and you kind of alluded to this already, but what plans do you have to get yourself through these next few years?

that's a great question. So for these next few years, let me just say, it's not even been a year yet. Wow. Wow. I am feeling it. I really feel it's a lot. And it's it's really

Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah.

And so

To get out of that, you have to detox at points. You have to just recognize your limits. That's the core of it. You have to recognize when you've reached your limit. If you have to take a day and not go knock doors, not make a couple phone calls, uninstall the New York Times app on your phone,

log out of Instagram or Twitter, ⁓ X, excuse me.

Yeah.

If you have to get away from all of it, go off the grid, if you will, for a day, a week even, do it. because I promise the world will not collapse with just you doing that. The world would not collapse with 10 people at once doing that. Everybody needs to recognize that they have their limits. So to survive these next couple of years, I will be doing that. But also, survival...

Yeah.

Yes. Thank you.

Wise words, wise words. I will take all of those recommendations to heart for sure. Because I do need to take some time. I really do.

Yes.

Well, Gibson O'Mealy, chair of the Pennsylvania High School Democrats, light years, light years ahead of where I was at his age, and just phenomenal person. I can't wait to see what you do in the future. I wanna know, anyone listening who's a young Democrat in Pennsylvania, what can they do, where can they go to get involved?

Yes, absolutely. ⁓ HsDemsPA on Instagram, it's a great way to get started. If you go there, you're going to see a link to our website. You're gonna see a link to how to join us. You're going to see a link to how to start a local chapter here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, if you would like to. We are always looking for new faces and new voices. That's the best way to get involved. Another way I'd suggest getting involved, I know you said this.

airs pretty much either right on or right before the election.

It

So there might not be a ton of time doing it ⁓ right as the election approaches. But what I can say is to get involved best this year, make sure to vote, make sure to tell, you know, five people, you know, family or friends, random guy walking down the street to go vote. But past that point, what you have to do is just stay active everywhere. Stay active in your social circles.

If you don't know it yet, you most definitely do have a local Democratic committee in your county, ⁓ even in your city or in your town. So look that up on Google. They probably have a website or some sort of link that you can follow. Excellent way to get involved there. And that's how I got my start in politics. wasn't youth politics, but that's eventually where it led to.

You're wise beyond your years, Gibson. I can't wait to watch and see what you do. I really hope this is not the last time we cross paths because you're just such a great person. I really appreciate you taking the time with me today.

Absolutely, Zeke, thank you so much. This was a pleasure.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much for joining me here on The Zekely Podcast. Stay hopeful and get involved and until next time, let's keep building a stronger Pennsylvania together.