The Liberty Report is joined by Kristin Soltis Anderson, author of The Selfie Vote: How Millennials Are Leading America. What are younger people concerned about and how can they be reached with the message of Liberty?
Ron Paul: Hello everybody. Thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report. With me today is Daniel McAdams and it’s good to see you today Daniel.
Daniel McAdams: Good morning Dr. Paul.
Ron Paul: Very good. We have an important guest today, an author who has written, I don’t know how to describe the book, but it’s involving Millennials. The author of this is Kristin Soltis Anderson and she wrote a book titled The Selfie Vote. Kristin it’s nice to have you with us today.
Kristin Soltis Anderson: Thank you very much for having me on the show Dr. Paul.
Ron Paul: Very good. We have a lot of questions, we want to learn something here. I would like to start off right now, I want you to define millennials. Sometimes I look it up and they give different definitions and different days and I figure, am I one of those and that sort of thing. Let’s sort of define that and tell me what the goal of your book was?
Kristin Soltis Anderson: Millennials are roughly defined as people who are born in the 1980s and 1990s. There is a little bit of debate as you mentioned about when the start and end dates for the generation are, but as a rough way of defining it, if you were born in the 80s and 90s, you are technically a millennial, which is a very broad generation. We are talking about tens of millions of people fall in that generation and this is a very important generation in terms of politics and in terms of ideas. Consumer brands are trying to figure out how to reach millennials because this is such a big consumer base. Non-profits and employers are trying to figure out how do I tap into the values of this generation and in politics people are trying to understand what this generation thinks and feels about where our country should be headed, because they make an awful lot of voters out there.
Had the election in 2012 been an election just have people over the age of 30, Republicans would be in the White House, but because Republicans and conservatives have struggled a little bit to win over the younger voters in recent elections, this is why I wrote The Selfie Vote, to try to give folks who lean further to the right, an understanding of what this generation cares about and how they can try to win them over.
Ron Paul: The first question that occurred to me when I saw your book and read your book was and you just stated it, you want to figure out what the Millennians are thinking and where they are leading us. I have been involved for a little bit in politics and talking to young people, but it seems like we have the things, I don’t know whether it’s mixed up or something, because I am trying to help guide the millennials, I am not really looking for information, I mean somebody just got out of high school or college and have been influenced by liberalism and socialism and all and I am not looking how they are leaning, I want to know how I can guide them, so that they will lead the country in a way that is very important to me.
Kristin Soltis Anderson: I think that is a good point. Certainly, as somebody who works in the polling field, this is a debate we deal with all the time. If people believe one thing and you as a leader believe something different than what the polls show, should you represent the views of the people or should you try to lead the people and persuade them to come around to your point of view. What I argue in The Selfie Vote is that it is really important for conservatives and people who care about liberty to make the case to younger voters in a different way than they have in the past.
To talk to younger voters about not just why the principles matter, but what those principles mean in their day-to-day lives, so that when you have young people who are coming out of colleges or universities where maybe they haven’t heard this message before, they can understand much more clearly why their hopes and dreams are best served by an agenda that creates more liberty for them.
Daniel McAdams: Kristin, when I think of millennials, I particularly think of the social media and the use of social media, which is an incredibly liberating platform, it certainly is a democratizing platform. This very show is essentially being put up on a social media site. I am a regular user of Twitter, I think it’s remarkable, but it is also sort of a revolutionary communications tool. This is the shortest spurt of words you can imagine to convey sometimes very complex thoughts.
Would you characterize the rise of the millennials coinciding with the rise of a shorter attention span and is that something that you address in the book? Is that something that we have to understand. I mean you think about these 40-page think tank papers that I am sure nobody reads anymore. How would you say communicating has changed in the age of Twitter?
Kristin Soltis Anderson: I think it’s important to note that even a couple of decades ago, the 40-page think tank papers weren’t being read by your average voter or your younger voter than either. Right now, what is exciting is that we have so many more tools to convey a message, rather than just having to rely on the mainstream media. If you are someone that is interested in politics and policy you have new ways to communicate about the things that you stand for. Yes, it’s much more concise than a 40-page think tank paper, but I think there is a real opportunity there. It’s not just millennials, although in some ways millennials lead these trends, they sort of start portray moving and then everyone else jumps on board.
The reason why social media is so compelling and so important nowadays isn’t just because it’s brief, but also because it’s in many ways very authentic. It allows people to feel that they have a direct connection with leaders, with celebrities, with thinkers, with influencers and allows them to communicate directly with their friends and family about politics, in a way that might have been more challenging even a decade ago. It used to be that you’d have to have these conversations over Thanksgiving dinner, with friends over happy hour, but now you can tell 100, 200, 300 of your friends all at once where you stand on an issue. I think that is what makes social media so valuable and important when it comes to conveying these ideas to millenials.
Ron Paul: The libertarians have a tendency not to like the ideas of groups and being bunched together. Is there any downside to being a millennial and stereotyped? Libertarians tend to see the whole world as individuals and as some people say that is too self-centered and that is no good, you can’t do that. The world has been both punished and a lot of harm comes from punishing groups of people, you belong to this group or that group. It’s not an age group, it’s a different thing and sometimes they are rewarded because they belong to a group.
The Libertarians argue that you should do neither, you should neither punish or help and give special privileges to any one group, but what about the stereotyping? You point out the important reason why you need to know this, especially maybe if you are in a business and maybe there are politicians that would find this helpful. Do you recognize any downsides of you being a millennial and people stereotyping, he’s in that generation, I don’t want to have any part of them. Does that go on?
Kristin Soltis Anderson: Absolutely it goes on and there is a real risk. Given that the millennial generation is such a broad definition, but right now, I am in my early thirties and I am technically a millennial, but so is someone who is just entering college, with whom I probably have very little in common. The thing that really binds the millennial generation together is that this is a generation that has come of age in an era where the Internet is just the norm. Originally, the generation was called the digital natives, but there is I think some, a lot of negative stereotyping about millennials that I try to debunk a bit in the book.
People assume millennials, that they are lazy, that they are self-absorbed, there are many number of things where you can read articles of people complaining about how horrible millennials are. I try to make the case in the book, look this is a generation of a lot of individuals who like to be very different, they don’t trust big institutions, they like smaller brands, they like defining their own personal brand, I guess, as very individualistic. They like working together to solve problems, but that doesn’t mean that they like the government to solve problems.
It’s a much more complicated generation that sometimes people give it credit for and I try to tell the story of that complexity in the book, rather than just caving into this idea that all millennials are the same.
Daniel McAdams: Kristin I think it is interesting what you said earlier about the authenticity of message, the authenticity of communication and I am sure you probably followed it at least from distance, but Dr. Paul’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns I think really demonstrated how a campaign driven by a coherent philosophy that is articulated in an uncompromising form can appeal to millennials. I think they appreciate the authenticity, this is what I am about. Now, looking at the Republicans now vying for office, do you think they are getting that message or are they too mired in talking points of how can I appeal. How would you grade the candidates in this respect?
Kristin Soltis Anderson: Oddly enough and I think for a whole host of reasons, Donald Trump is ultimately not the candidate that is going to win over the millennial generation, but you can argue that the he communicates is that kind of unvarnished, it’s at least the illusion of authenticity. I think maybe a better example would be Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side, where he holds a host of views that I completely disagree with, but you don’t doubt for a second that the things Bernie Sanders is saying are things that he actually believes and you are seeing in the polls on the Democratic side that there is very little enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton among millennials and that they have started to gravitate toward Bernie Sanders. I think that is sort of the latest manifestation of this fact.
When Dr. Paul ran for President he had the same sort of phenomenon where lots of young voters thought it was refreshing that someone was saying things that they truly believed and it’s sad that that is viewed as a sort of a unique thing in politics nowadays. It’s very refreshing to millennials who just don’t trust big institutions, they don’t trust big brands, they don’t trust the media and they don’t trust the things that they sound like they have heard them before or that they are too rehearsed. They want people to be authentic and they’d rather have a candidate with whom they disagree on some issues, but at least they feel like they know where that person stands, than someone who tries to put on a nice show, but where they feel like they cannot trust them at all.
Ron Paul: Don’t you think there is a dramatic difference between the individual and you use Bernie Sanders as an example and I know him well and we worked, so I know what is going on there, but I think Bernie and you compared him to me on our strategy or the way we proceed, but we generally are not too interested in the vehicles and say what we need to do is and use the Internet in a certain way. But, my biggest surprise was, since I was not internet-savvy, was in 2007 when I really got involved in national politics and campaigning, was that it was so unbelievably spontaneous. I didn’t have to understand that.
I used to kid, I as a physician knew what a virus was about and it was very dangerous, but all of a sudden it went viral and I had to learn these things, but I didn’t have to worry about it. This to me was the magnificent thing about the technology and it just seems like the principle is the overwhelming issue because this is why I find it fascinating to talk to young people. Their minds are not closed and I know, I get a lot of grief, you speak highly on the young people and you mentioned that you can’t say that everybody in that age group is all going to be very positive. I think young people are so fascinating and I don’t want to put them in a category, I want to be careful with that, but it seems like concentrating on a philosophy seems like a very important part of not even worrying about some of this.
Kristin Soltis Anderson: It’s absolutely right that good content is far more important than the vehicle that you deliver it through, so if you have an old message, if you have a message that does not resonate, if you have ideas that people don’t care about, that aren’t interesting, that aren’t valuable, then you can use all the social media you want and no one will care. I think content is king, ideas are king and I think everything will grow organically if you have a message and ideas that are powerful for people.
Daniel McAdams: I was wondering actually maybe going to the dark side a little bit and see what you might think about this. One thing that struck me when I saw this a few weeks ago about millennials and it’s troubling and I don’t know, maybe you have some thoughts on it, maybe you don’t, but among millennials I saw that 60% support sending troops to Syria, but then the same poll 62% said they personally would not join the military and are not interested in going. How can we counter this idea? How can we convince young people that there are costs, both human and financial to war and it is not a sort of a tweet or a video game or something? This seems like a real challenge for what Dr. Paul and I deal with all the time.
Ron Paul: Yeah.
Kristin Soltis Anderson: This has been an interesting, if you look at the statistics on who joins the military and how likely someone is to know someone who is serving in the military. Those patterns have really shifted over the last few decades in the United States, to where now a significat number of people in the millennial generation don’t necessarily know someone who is their age who is serving or has served. That is where you can see these poll results, they are pretty divergent. We on the one hand want to see action and on the other hand we don’t necessarily want to be the ones going on the front lines. Public opinion on foreign policy is really volatile and it’s particularly volatile with younger voters.
That is a big part of why I specifically say this in The Selfie Vote, I try to avoid talking about it, because during 2014 when I was writing the bulk of the book, poll after poll was showing that young voters really wanted a much more limited role for the US in terms of foreign policy. They preferred a trimmer military, they just weren’t as confident about America’s role overseas, but then as you saw the rise of ISIS, I began to see poll numbers showing these really dramatic changes, until I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t trying to draw big conclusions about this generations on issues where the public opinions was shifting so much, but certainly the rise of ISIS has kind of scrambled the issue and mix it up about how millennials think about these issues.
You can really divide the millennial generation into two groups. Again, it’s such a big generation, you can look at folks who are my age, older millennials. We remember 9/11, but we also remember the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, how around 2006, 2007 you had the surge, because things were going so badly and it’s those old millennials that still remain really skeptical of American intervention, the idea that America should be wielding strength in the world. It’s younger millennials who maybe don’t have those same kind of memories, who are coming of age where the rise of ISIS is the first foreign policy thing that is really sticking in their minds. So, their views are being shaped by just a different set of current events.
Ron Paul: I don’t find it too strange or unusual that these attitudes would change with young people on it, because they are getting their opinion from the major media. Even though there are technophobes and they look at all their cell phones and all this. The major media can really put out the propaganda where all of a sudden the point you make is and what Kristin makes is they did shift their viewpoint, which is a challenge.
I want to finish up Kristin and it’s a bit an economic question, but it’s also dealing with millennials. I read an article that said millenials present a difficult for people selling stuff, their taste might be different and besides you can’t assume they are going to buy a car, they buy them and then they quit and are not interested in cars and they don’t buy houses, therefore the furniture market is going to be different. The article presented this as a characteristic of the millennials, that they don’t like cars and they don’t like houses, but I don’t know how anybody could possibly talk about that if they didn’t talk about debt, student debt and the economy and unemployment.
I happen to think no matter what the statistic shows and say millennials don’t like cars and houses, I think they do, I think that we need is to lead the millennials, we need a different education in our college system, we need more independent thinking to show that the reason they are not buying cars and houses is they are flat out broke and the debt has been dumped on them. I think that is so different than saying the millennials, it looks like they don’t like cars and houses. How would you respond to that opinion of mine?
Kristin Soltis Anderson: What I think that really defines this generation and that lumps or that links together the not buying cars, the not buying houses with the economic situation and the debt they face is this is a generation that has become very risk averse. They’ve come of age in an era where they were told saving up your money into the stock market is just a smart idea, you should take out those loans for college and you’ll get that college education and that’ll put you on the path for success.
Look, your parents’ generation, they all bought houses, that was a good investment, you should do that. Slowly, but surely they saw that all of those things started to fall apart. They saw the financial crisis, they saw their parents’ homes get foreclosed and they took on their college debt and found that that degree may not have been as valuable as they believed it would be. Now, they are faced with all of this debt and they are thinking all of these things I was told were responsible, buying a home, buying a car, living in the suburbs. Maybe that is not as responsible as I was told. It’s not that they don’t want cars or houses. You are absolutely right, for many of them it’s just that they can’t afford these things, they can’t put together a down payment on a car or a house because they are facing such tough economic times.
But, they are also I think pretty scarred by the difficult economic times that they’ve come of age in and so for them making these big investments it’s like making a commitment. You are committing to a car, you are committing to a house, when you can just rent month to month or taken Uber somewhere you haven’t made that commitment which feels less risky. I think that is why you are seeing some of these behaviors in young people. It really is as you mentioned, linked back tot he economic situation they faced and particularly for many the student loan issue.
Ron Paul: Right. Kristin I want to thank you very much for being with us today. I found it very fascinating and I am sure a lot of other people will be looking at it and they are going to be looking at it for pragmatic political reasons I think as much as anything and I don’t think you deny that there is some political advice in here for some candidates. Anyway, thank you very much for being with us today Kristin.
Kristin Soltis Anderson: Thank you.
Ron Paul: And I want to say to the audience, I want to thank you for being with us today at the Liberty Report and I hope you come back soon. I bet you find this discussion interesting and the one point I tried to make is that it’s not so much that it disproves anything that is in particular written in the book or anything, but I just sort of cringe at putting people in groups, but I thought Kristin answered that question rather well, because there is a danger in stereotyping people, but the principles of liberty depend on individuals and not on groups, we don’t have any rights because we belong to a group, we should never be penalized and I guess in theory I belong to the silent generation of the 50s. I don’t know what I am supposed to do about that, because I never wanted to be very silent.
I often wonder who coins these terms, who coins the newness in our language? This is a word that might be used for a hundred years, no you cannot use that word anymore, it’s politically incorrect. Who has the authority to do this and why do we all roll over and say, no I don’t want to, it’s the politically correct police that is on the media that tends to do this, but I cringe when people want to bring things together and lump them in a group.
Nevertheless, I think people will find the book of interest and I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report and come back soon.