During a town hall in Washington, D.C. last night, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked House Speaker Paul Ryan what he considered to be the most “irksome” comments he’d seen about himself on social media.
“What written about you on social media has been the most amusing to you, and what has been the most irksome?” Tapper asked him.
Ryan answered that he doesn’t get bothered much by the comments, yet he made a point of mentioning he knew what ‘dabbing’ was, responding to the comments he’d received after the swearing-in of Rep. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas), whose son had flaunted the dance move while posing for pictures with him last week. Ryan had posted photos of the ceremony to Twitter with the caption, “Just finished swearing-in photos. Nearly 300 members. Countless cute kids. Still don’t get what dabbing is, though.”
The reactions from several young Twitter users seemed irritating enough to get a reaction out of Ryan last night. The “irksome” part? They mocked him for being “out of touch” because he didn’t know what the new-generation dance move was.
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“I actually know what a ‘dab’ is, okay?” Ryan told Tapper. “Just for the record. It’s this.” He paused to physically demonstrate he knew how to dab, then added Cad Marshall “wasn’t doing a dab, by the way, it looked like he was sneezing… that’s not dabbing, in my opinion… I think that kind of went viral and I got made fun of for that.”
This is not the first time Ryan was mocked for being “out-of-touch” with millennials. Just this past summer, Sarah Palin called him “out-of-touch” because of his stance on Islam, and the label stuck with him in far-right circles on social media.
After asking an ideologically diverse group of millennials, however, Red Alert Politics found most them did not think the Speaker is out-of-touch.
“I think millennials are out of touch with reality,” Daily Wire contributor Elliott Hamilton, age 24, said. “Reality doesn’t mirror what they’ve learned in college. Most of their simplistic solutions to solving complex challenges come at a cost.”
National Review’s Howard Slugh, who is 33-years old, says millennials should not be concerned about characteristics that do not affect policy.
“People, regardless of their age, care more about things like the economy and healthcare than whether the Speaker of the House is hip to the latest dance moves,” the Washington, D.C.- based attorney told Red Alert. “If Speaker Ryan helps foster an environment conducive to economic growth and workable healthcare solutions, millennials shouldn’t care if he dances the Waltz, the Watusi or whatever is in style these days.”
Maayan Golbus, a 23-year-old lifelong San Francisco Democrat and small business owner, told Red Alert she thinks politicians should not be concerned with trying to impress millennials.
“I much prefer that he know about substantive issues than a dance move,” she said. “He’s speaker of the House. He is one of the people charged with the welfare and security of this country. While I’m not over the moon about his policies, I respect his work ethic. Hillary Clinton was brilliant and her downfall was that she kept trying to appeal to millennials. She just needed to be herself and stop trying to chameleon herself.”
Nonetheless, Ryan praised Twitter as a tool for reaching millennials in a way that going through the media would not have accomplished. Asked by a millennial at Thursday’s town hall how he thought President-Elect Donald Trump’s tweeting habits could affect foreign and domestic policy, Ryan replied it could lead to an “unconventional” presidency, but that it was extremely effective in getting him elected.
