'Gen Z don’t play': AOC says Tennessee’s ‘fascism’ is firing up young people

Tennessee Republican lawmakers plunged the Volunteer State into controversy Thursday when the House expelled two Democrats who protested gun violence on the chamber floor last week.

Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, who are both Black, were among three lawmakers who protested gun violence in the aftermath of a mass shooting at a small Nashville Christian school that killed six, including three 9-year-old children. A third lawmaker, Gloria Johnson, survived her expulsion vote.

The expulsions over rules violations are the first in Tennessee House history.

But if the intent of the expulsions was to tamp down opposition to an agenda that in recent years has included loosening gun laws and banning drag shows, Tennessee House Republicans likely failed in spectacular fashion, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said.

“Republicans may think they won today in Tennessee, but their fascism is only further radicalizing and awakening an earthquake of young people, both in the South and across the nation. If you thought youth organizing was strong, just wait for what’s coming,”the progressive Democrat from New York tweeted Thursday.

“Gen Z don’t play.”