NASHVILLE, Tennessee— If you’re older than 50 and worry millennials will eventually muck things up for America then look no further than who stood in line to hear President Donald Trump speak in downtown Nashville Tuesday.
There were a good number of young people waiting six, seven, maybe even eight hours outside Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium to cheer on Trump, despite mainstream media narratives that say only older working class folks support him.
They were not only young, but they relocated from parts of the country that traditionally vote left.
These millennials say they get a bad rap.
“I would say within the last year and a half I’ve seen the narrative flip flop dramatically. The mainstream media is losing the narrative,” said McKenzie Blaser, 21 originally from Akron, Ohio.
“Don’t count out the young female conservatives. They voted for Trump too, and I’m living proof.”
Another Ohio native, Danny Kosko, came to Nashville only because he said he wanted to see last year’s solar eclipse. He liked Middle Tennessee so much he decided to pro-long his stay, although he is moving back home soon to start a new business.
“I love Trump so much that I would blast Abraham Lincoln’s face off Mt. Rushmore and put Trump’s face up there replace it,” Kosko said.
“Although I do believe that Trump should pay for it with his own money.”
Another young man standing in line, James Dunn, said he hails from a liberal area near Boston. There was discord back home when people found out he voted Trump — at least for a time, he said.
“People would hate my guts. I wouldn’t say anything outrageous, but they still hated me, but I still keep in touch with a lot of people from back home. Within the last year or so I’ve seen a lot of people wo were very anti-Trump sort of get used to him” Dunn said.
“He’s a man you have to get used to. He’s so brash. He’s so unconventional. I can see why people hate him. He’s a wrench in the machine. It throws a lot of people off. Once you see where he’s going and what he’s done they are starting to get used to it.”
Blaser, meanwhile, said her roommates barely spoke to her for a month after the 2016 election, knowing she didn’t vote for Hillary.
“One roommate was Googling how to move to Canada, and the other one was in her room sobbing,” Blaser said.
“I’m not being overly dramatic. This actually happened.”
Those political awakenings seemed to pale in comparison to that of New Jersey native Josh Irving, who said changing his zip code to Nashville altered him for the better.
“I was very liberal when I came to Nashville. I’m a huge First Amendment guy. I love George Carlin and Bill Hicks,” Irving said.
“But I had a moment of clarity where I said I at least have to hear out the other side, and I was surprised to learn that they have very good points to make. I felt as though I was lied to, in a sense, by the liberal, more left-leaning people that come out of Princeton.”
People up north depicted Tennessee as full of bigots and racists, and Irving said he realized those stereotypes were false. The people who drilled those narratives into his head, he went on, essentially betrayed him.
With this optimistic attitude, Irving said the young batch of kids coming after the millennials will do better than their elders.
“To be blunt, Generation Z will completely undo and reverse everything the millennials screwed up,” Irving said.
