Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., the self-proclaimed “Lumberjack in Congress” recently reached out to an underrepresented faction of the GOP: millennials. On his “Plaidcast” podcast, Duffy interviewed Students For Trump National Chair Ryan Fournier.
In a crucial midterm election year where polls have shown that millennials are not engaged with Republican politics, and are even leaving the party, Fournier provided a sense of calm for Trumpers of all ages. He founded Students for Trump as then-candidate Donald Trump famously rode the escalator down Trump Tower in 2015, and has accumulated quite the following ever since. He boasts 300,000 followers on his personal Twitter account, while Students for Trump has some 88 thousand followers.
Fournier has shown extreme confidence in the president during a time where even some of his most devoted followers, like Ann Coulter, have jumped ship. The Campbell University student cites the growing economy as a major blue chip accomplishment for the administration 14 months in.
“We’re seeing more jobs enter the market … and there’s a lot of millennial support out there for him, but a lot of them are scared to admit it,” Fournier told Duffy.
In addition to items the president could cover on his agenda, Duffy and Fournier dove into the seemingly never-ending battle for conservatives on college campuses. While Duffy cited a report that the University of Wisconsin-Madison dishes out 95 percent of its $1.5 million in political student organization funding to liberal-leaning groups, Fournier offered a retort that President Trump may know all too well: on his home campus, Campbell University, Fournier said he receives more backlash from traditional Republicans than liberals.
“I will say in general I’ve had to change my cellphone number four times … I think the only backlash I received personally was from establishment-based Republicans, who just didn’t like Donald Trump and didn’t want to support him no matter what,” Fournier said.
As for methods conservative millennial college students can use to fight back against what they see as leftist tyranny from their superiors, Fournier praises the work of watchdog sites that expose bias behavior from professors and monetary allocations from college administrations. He also pointed out how Internet shows – like the one hosted by Ben Shapiro – have done an excellent job in simplifying the news and breaking down government for a young audience.
