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Selling Political Canned Tuna to Voters Who Don’t Own Can Openers

This is not another opinion column picking on Millennials. I promise.

This is, rather, an exhortation to Millennials—to all Americans, really—to think hard and think differently about the problems ailing our tarnished republic.

But to think differently about where we’re going as a nation, we need to see clearly where we are right now.

And the stone-cold truth of the matter is we live in a nation where the bulk of the largest single demographic group is entering its 30s apparently without any concept of how to use a can opener.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday revealed this staggering fact in a story about how the big-three canned tuna fish manufacturers—StarKist, BumbleBee, and Chicken of the Sea—are struggling with slumping sales. The market has changed. Customers now prefer fresh or fresh frozen products. But apart from that, as StarKist’s vice president of marketing notes matter-of-factly, “a lot of millennials don’t even own can openers.”

Now, say what you will about canned tuna—it’s disgusting, of course—the cultural and political implications of this revelation are profound. Entire industries, not just the canned tuna people, will be forced to change the way they make and sell their products all because the dominant segment of the marketplace doesn’t own a basic kitchen tool.

Call it creative destruction, or call it laziness. If it doesn’t have a pull-tab or you can’t put it in an easy-open pouch, forget it. You’re good as dead . . .

Read the rest at the Sacramento Bee.

Photo credit: Rick Loomis/Getty Images

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