This high school student is among a growing number of teenagers who are defying the so-called progressive (socialist) stereotypes of America’s youngest voters and jumping on the bandwagon of former President Trump (2017-2021).
“I feel like it reflects a lot of my personal values,” Schaefer-Rose said, wearing sunglasses at a Youth VoteFest event Wednesday near the Republican National Convention.
More and more young people are inclined to vote Republican in defense of conservative values and against left-wing indoctrination in universities and educational centers in the United States
Trump inspires young people
Caden first met Trump in 2016, watching him on television during his election campaign that year. Other first-time voters at the event said their first memory of Trump was seeing his cameo in “Home Alone 2” or as a hot-headed boss on the TV series “The Apprentice.”
“I just connected with him. I was only eight years old at the time, but I could see that he was someone I could look up to,” Schaefer-Rose said.
The same thing happened to Matthew Paley, a 19-year-old from New Jersey who was having fun outside the stadium where the Republican Convention was being held.
She met her idol Trump recently at an event in Florida and today she guarantees that she fully supports the former president in his attempt to return to the White House: “He is very nice and brave!”
“Honestly, at first… I just liked Trump because I thought he was nice. Then, once I started doing research, I thought, ‘Oh, he’s a great man,'” Paley admitted.
Paley supports the same “core conservative values” that Trump espouses, including the right to bear arms.
American youth have traditionally voted for Democrats and, for now, largely still do. But Republicans insist that a paradigm shift is taking place.
A 2016 Pew Research poll showed that voters under 30 supported the Democratic Party’s ticket by a 30-point margin over Republicans. By 2020, that advantage had shrunk to 24 points.
Biden “limits your dreams”
Younger voters are critical, as data shows the college student vote is on the rise and Republicans are courting them like never before.
JD Vance, recently announced as Trump’s running mate, is just 39 years old, 20 years younger than the current vice president, Democrat Kamala Harris.
The party invited Amber Rose, a social media influencer with 24 million followers on Instagram, to address the convention, where she endorsed Trump on Monday.
And in an attempt to attract young black voters, rapper Forgiato Blow also appeared.
Charlie Kirk, who founded the youth-oriented conservative group Turning Point USA when he was just 18, took to the stage at the convention this week saying President Joe Biden’s message to Gen Z is to “limit your dreams (and) settle for less.”
“Donald Trump refuses to accept this false, pathetic and mutilated version of the American dream,” said Kirk, 30, to loud applause.
Xavier Starks, a black high school student from Wisconsin, will turn 18 in August and says he is considering voting for Trump.
Well-informed young conservatives cite the growing US national debt, diminishing homeownership prospects, inflated interest rates, chaos in the economy and illegal immigration as reasons for voting for Trump.
Source: With information from AFP.