Congresswoman ‘Auntie Maxine’ Waters strikes a chord with millennials

She’s 78 years old, but Rep. Maxine Waters is more popular with millennials than their parents ever dreamed of.

The blunt-talking Democratic congresswoman who represents a densely populated corridor of Los Angeles County stretching from Inglewood to Torrance and east to South Los Angeles has been in public office longer than the 20- and 30-somethings have been on the planet.

But she speaks their language. Literally. She’s learned — and mastered — terms like “stay woke” and “throwing shade.”

Throwing shade, says 24-year-old Simeon Carson of Compton, aptly describes the communication, both verbal and nonverbal, Waters routinely hurls in the direction of President Donald Trump.

“And shade is something that needs to be thrown with this president,” said Carson, who is pursuing majors in political science and Pan African Studies at Cal State Los Angeles.

Not only do millennials, and particularly black millennials, listen intently whenever Waters grabs a microphone, they have developed a term of affection for her: Auntie Maxine.

Her soaring popularity among the millennial crowd is not only stunning, say, conservative critics, it is also puzzling.

“It’s a head-scratcher as to why young people are gravitating toward Maxine Waters,” said John Berry, a California state coordinator for the Tea Party Patriots who lives in Redlands.

“I just don’t get it,” Berry said. “There are so many other rational leftists out there that the young people could gravitate toward. Are they burned out on Bernie Sanders?”

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A nationally recognized expert on the generation isn’t surprised at all.

Jason Dorsey, the 38-year-old president of the Center for Generational Kinetics, a research and consulting firm

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