Musings from MRA Global Sourcing: Election Season

In this recurring series, the partners and consultants of MRA Global Sourcing share their learnings, observations, and the occasional rant cultivated from years of experience in recruiting and placement for supply management functions.

MRA finds itself musing over the fascinating course of events unfolding during this election year.  An oft-repeated fact these days is that Millennials will equal the Baby Boomers in terms of the share of the electorate – approximately 31% of eligible voters. And with that comes a warning for both parties that they shouldn’t take these Millennials for granted as all conventional thinking has been thrown to the wind. Almost 50% of these youngsters consider themselves independent but they also are categorized as more liberal than their parents. Key for the Democrats is to get them to come out and vote which isn’t expected to be easy this election cycle. The Republicans are trying to capitalize on this as they are hoping their two youngest candidates, the Senators, will help attract the youth to come out and stop the Trump train and derail the Democrats bid for a third term.

According to a 2014 Pew Research Center Study it found that Millennials are the most ethnically diverse generation in our American history. They are less religious then their preceding generations and slower to wed as well. The issue of college debt is what is causing these Millennials to pay attention to fiscal discussions and policies since that’s when they entered the workforce in circa 2008 and have seen government debt increase and slow growth as the norm.

A few weeks back the WSJ did a story titled, ‘The Young and Economically Clueless’ and the premise was questioning why the young people are voting against their own interests?  What they didn’t factor into their analysis was that according to the Director of Polling at the Harvard Institute of Politics, young voters generally seem less interested in politicians’ CV’s than their candor. This Institute has been polling Millennials since 2000 and states that the youth are looking for candidates that are focusing on emotion and talking about the moment and seem the most authentic rather than those with supposedly stellar accomplishments from the past.

To be fair to these Millennials, they have lived through prolonged economic duress and thus are more sensitive to the economic ‘unfairness’ they perceive around them. This enamors them to Senator Sanders’ message of income redistribution and going after the greed on Wall Street.  However, on the other side you have vague promises of ‘making America great again’ slogans that are as empty as our national coffers. It is populism taken to the fringes where the enemy is free trade and immigrants. We will discuss this political phenomenon from both parties in subsequent musings….

living in democracies that allow them to vote, they need to exercise that right to force their governments to pay heed to what’s important to them.

Next time, we'll discuss and praise an SCM - Smart Cookie Millennial!

‘Til then - Save Big and Prosper…

MRAGS

MRA Global Sourcing is the preeminent firm specializing in recruitment for procurement and strategic sourcing, connecting the best supply management talent with the best opportunities. Visit them on the web to learn more.