Millennials, especially on college campuses, tend to be liberal and this can understandably be an uncomfortable environment for young conservatives. This isn't an article whining about how hard it is to be a young conservative, because even if it's difficult, it can also provide you with great opportunities for growth and give you friends who will challenge your point of view. Along with the great opportunities that come along with being a conservative, there are a few struggles I know this crowd can relate to.
1. People assume that you want to get into politics after college.
I get this all the time, and I understand why. I am a very political person, I am currently trying to start a political club on campus and post about politics all of the time. It throws many people off when I tell them that I am a psychology major with a criminal justice minor and that I hope to go to medical school one day, instead of law school.
2. Older generations don’t take you seriously.
Older people love that I pay attention to politics until they find out that I am a conservative Republican and they are a liberal Democrat. They will sit there and tell me that I don't know what I am talking about or that I am just following my parents' political affiliation (I come from a house divided so that line doesn't work on me). It doesn't matter how many facts or statistics I show them, to them I will still be an uninformed millennial.
3. You can’t have reasonable debates with others your age.
Debating with young people these days can be a major headache. People do not care about facts or statistics anymore, they would rather go on feelings and making sure that no one in the world ever gets their feelings hurt. This is a nice fairytale dream but will obviously never happen, but people still get a little testy when you let them in on this little secret.
4. People are just flat-out shocked.
People seem to think that finding a young conservative is as rare as finding a unicorn. Only old people are supposed to be conservative, right? You'll constantly get stared at as soon as a stranger sees your conservative paraphernalia. People will either love it or hate it.
5. Professors will have a bias against you.
Many college professors tend to lean to the left, which is completely fine. The only time this becomes a problem is when they let their biases influence their teaching or grading.
6. Sometimes, we feel like we have to hide our beliefs.
Sometimes the best thing to do is to hide your political affiliation from others. Typically, college campuses are a fairly liberal environment (which is, again, just fine). There are plenty of environments where it's safer to keep your beliefs to yourself, for the sake of keeping the peace.
7. Bernie is everywhere you look.
Millennials were the number one supporters of the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign. This means that's colleges are full of Bernie 2016 stickers. This can be aggravating to Republicans and Libertarians alike, due to their love of fiscal conservatism. I have also found that a few economics professors also share this aggravation.
8. It's tough to find conservative friends.
We live in a tense and divided political climate, which can make it hard to make new friends. The best thing in a young conservatives life is meeting another young conservative, whether they are libertarian or republican there is just something exciting about meeting someone with the same ideology as you.
9. We lose faith in our generation at least once a day.
This struggle can actually reach across the aisle to all ideologies. This is not a left versus right issue, here. We all see posts on social media from both extreme sides of the spectrum that make us lose hope for our generation and for generations to come.
10. Post your opinions on social media at your own risk.
Emotions tend to run high on Facebook and Twitter. I have seen family members delete and block each other over political arguments. Conservatives have to keep this in mind when they go to post because liberal friends and family members you never knew you ever had come out of the woodwork to let you know just how wrong they think you are.
