Taylor Swift performs onstage during the reputation Stadium Tour at NRG Stadium on September 29, 2018 in Houston, Texas. Image by Getty Images

By Rachel R. Gonzalez October 12, 2018

In the hours following Taylor Swift’s Instagram post urging people in Tennessee to vote for Democratic nominees for U.S Senate and Congress Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper, there was a spike in voter registration.

According to vote.org, 65,000 people registered within the next 24-hours.

Taylor Swift was brave to publicly announce who she is voting for, because it could risk the loss of longtime fans.

When asked about the endorsements made by Taylor Swift in an interview, Donald Trump said, “I like Taylor’s music 25 percent less now.”

Donald Trump is the same man who praises musicians such as Kanye West and Kidd Rock for their political beliefs and activism. It seems that it’s only acceptable when the ideology of celebrities matches his. Have you ever heard a Republican tell Kidd Rock to stick to entertaining? I didn’t think so.

Other well-known Republicans dismissed the impact of Taylor Swift’s voice. Mike Huckabee, the former Governor of Arkansas and father of Trump’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, tweeted that Taylor Swift “has every right to be political but it won’t impact election unless we allow 13 yr old girls to vote.”

Mike Huckabee, I hate to break it to you, but Taylor Swift has millions of fans of all ages. I think we all have forgotten that her first album came out in 2006 and she won her first Grammy in 2008. That means that those 13-year-old girls who have been listening to Taylor’s music are now in their early twenties — and eligible to vote.

While there are undoubtedly Taylor Swift fans that are not of voting age yet, for every teenage girl that politicians such as Mike Huckabee dismiss, there are people that love them, and these people vote.

Regardless of who people support at the polls, I always encourage them to vote. This is a striking difference between myself and the Republican party. I have concluded that Republicans don’t actually want people to vote, because if they were serious about it, they would support same-day voter registration. They wouldn’t push lousy voter ID laws that make it harder for people and they too would be out there registering people to vote not just their supporters.

My generation is not motivated to vote by a single issue or single person; we are motivated by multiple people, perspectives and issues. We care about gun control, healthcare and equal rights, but above all, we want to change the old guard and have our voices heard. Millennials and Generation Z get falsely blamed for a lot of things, but they aren’t the ones in power — yet.

The lack of respect given to young people in politics is often disheartening, but we will continue this fight to get our voices heard and, as Swift would say, shake it off.

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