Nicole Dominiak

Hello,

My name is Nicole, and over the coming months, I will be researching democracy in America (and Ancient Athens) at Senator Flake’s Phoenix office. Whatever your political persuasion, I think we can all agree that:

1. It’s important that citizens play an active role in their democracy (Did you know you can contact your senators or even visit them? Probably.)
2. A lot of citizens are less active than is ideal (Have you ever sent them an email? Probably not.)

So the moral of the story is:

The thing is, taking action can be difficult, especially when it comes to politics and our busy lives. So the goal of my SRP is to figure out why this is the case (big goal) by exploring political efficacy, but I hope to narrow down my search to a specific area in the upcoming weeks.

You’re probably asking yourself why a high school student would choose to spend her time reading interpretations on the Founding Fathers’ vision for America, books on Ancient Greek history, and then spend all this effort tying these concepts back to the Arizona political system. I think the easiest answer to this is: if you’ve met me, you’ll understand. If you haven’t, I think this blog will make my odd interests apparent soon enough.

()

(The list of things that makes me happy, among other things, includes parentheses, as you've probably already noted.)

Anyways, I love politics, political theory, and philosophy. So nothing would make me happier than taking the time to focus on my own community’s system of government and how Arizona citizens relate to it. Part of this love, I believe, came from visiting my grandparents in Washington DC (quite awkwardly, my grandmother was up in arms about government surveillance after the Snowden incident, while grandfather said nothing--because he worked for the NSA). Another part of this love comes from being a person who’s attracted to stories and narrative building, which plays a less obvious but (I think) more interesting role in politics.

Ultimately, I’d like to take all I’ve learned (in school and in life), veil it slightly, and become a novelist (“pah!” my mother says). But whatever I end up doing, I am here now, and I am excited for the upcoming months. So I hope you will join me on this journey to the dark, seedy underbelly of American government, where you might discover that politicians and their staff work harder than you assumed. not all conversations happen behind locked doors, and ultimately, it’s more well-lit than you thought.