WASHINGTON D.C. — As the national conventions loom and Novembernears, the trepidation over the (presumptive) showdown betweenDonald Trump and Hillary Clinton is palpable.

No matter who assumes the highest office, there will be changes— a fact that’s not lost on the HR professionals ofAmerica.

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In Tuesday’s special session at the Society for Human Resources Management(SHRM) 2016 conference, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlsondiscussed the election thus far.

Begala, a CNN commentator who is credited with helping both BillClinton and Barack Obama get elected, and Carlson, perhaps bestknown for his Crossfire showdown with John Stewart (hecurrently is a co-host on Fox & Friends and is theeditor-in-chief of The Daily Caller), represent two endsof the political spectrum.

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Political punditry may seem like an odd fit for an HRconvention, but because HR professionals are wedged between keepingemployees happy and employers compliant, issues that affectpolitics — free speech issues, diversity, income gaps,and more — also affect HR departments.

With the divided climate that plagues workforces, (and morebroadly, our country), HR professionals have more skin in theelection than you may think.

Carlson kicked everything off, diving into his thoughts on thepresumptive nominees for both parties: “It’s usually pretty easy totell who’s going to win at this time in the race, and it’s eveneasier to know who the nominees are supposed to be,” he says,referring to the GOP coup to dismantle Trump’s run and BernieSanders’ reluctance to end his campaign.

This led Carlson to tell the crowd how we got here. How did twofringe candidates manage to make it this far, let alone gain anomination, albeit presumptive? He says he has learned three thingsfrom this situation:

Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson discussed political issuesimportant to HR at SHRM 2016. (Photo: Erin Moriarty-Siler)

• The parties have no idea who their own voters are. “Both partiesdidn’t keep track of their own voters, and we know this because ofTrump and Sanders. These movements arose without the knowledge ofthe parties.”

• Message matters. “Trump spent no money, he had no staff, nometadata, no pollsters. He still beat 16 well-funded politicians,”Carlson says. “He won because of his message. It’s a nationalismthat appeals to a lot of Republican voters.”

• Self discipline matters. “These are mirrored campaigns. Trump isall message and no discipline. Hillary is all discipline and nomessage,” he says. “We need a synthesis of the two. Each bird isflying with one wing.”

Begala then jumped in, noting, “What’s happening in my businessis the exact same thing that’s happening in [HR].” He pointed outhow median income has stalled and there has been an explosion ofdiversity, two things that HR professionals can certainlyunderstand within their own teams.

“When Franklin Roosevelt was elected, 95 percent that voted werewhite. Sixty years later, during Bill Clinton’s race in 1992, thatonly decreased to 88 percent,” he says. “Now it’s 72 percent underObama, and in November it will be 70 percent. This diversity is whyObama is your president, and it’s why I don’t think Trump will beyour president.”

And this is where the conversation largely remained: income anddiversity. Trump’s comments on the Latino and Muslim communitieshave hurt his ability to expand his base of voters, says Begala, apoint that shows Trump's lack of adaptation.

“[Trump] has built a solid base, it’s gotten him over 13 millionvotes,” he says. “And yet, he has self-limited so terrificallybecause he has shut himself out with young people, Hispanics, andwomen, especially unmarried women. The Republicans have toadapt.”

Carlson was quick to agree, saying the race to the presidency is“survival of the most adaptable.” The conversation soon turned backto income equality.

“The key to the race is that the effects of change are notspread equally,” Carlson says. “Some people are much better suitedto adapt, and that’s really about income lines. Immigration is aperfect example.”

Carlson says he is pro-immigration, even going so far as to sayhe doesn’t know anyone personally who isn’t. “The reason why I’venever heard about [anti-immigration movements] is because I livedin affluent towns,” he says. (Carlson grew up in La Jolla,California.) The reason why richer communities are for immigration?“It makes us feel virtuous. Immigration is a no-cost way for us tofeel virtuous. And it’s cheap labor, let’s not lie about it.Guilt-free cheap labor.”

He’s not wrong. Immigration has long been touted as a way tofill jobs that many American-born citizens have opted out of, butthe anti-immigration movement has also been hinged on this fact.Some Americans believe — and to borrow a line from South Park— that immigrants “took our jobs.”

“If you flood a labor market at the lower end with new workers,what happens to wages? If you have an abundance of something, thevalue falls,” Carlson says. “The wages will remain stagnant, justlike Paul says.”

Carlson says that the parties failed on this issue, and byproxy, the HR departments of the world can’t enhance wages. He saysthat by ignoring immigration’s effect on the economy, averagepeople with real concerns were left hanging — and because oftoday’s insistence on diversity and “political correctness” (bothBegala and Carlson say they hate the PC default they feel societyinsists on), when those average people ask questions, they’reignored and labeled as bigots.

“HR directors know how many things can’t be spoken about — thisis one of them,” Carlson says. “When you tell people that theirreal concerns are evidence that they are immoral, what happens? Dothose concerns go away? No, they go subterranean where they festerand emerge in Donald Trump. This is a failure of the elite.”

That failure, he says, is the reason why so many people can’tpay a $400 emergency expense if it were needed within 24 hours.“That’s our middle class,” he says.

“You need a confident, thriving middle class and ours is dying.Both parties didn’t know and didn’t care,” he says. “The Dems liedabout it because they were afraid it would hurt Obama. TheRepublicans didn’t want to admit it because it was an attack oncapitalism. This is how we got Sanders and Trump… and now one ofthem got the nomination.”

While Begala agrees that the middle class is disappearing (“Ifeven Tucker Carlson is telling you income equality is a problem,you know it’s a problem,”) due to wage worries, he says blamingimmigration — a typical Trump tactic — isn’t fair.

“I think we have failed a whole lot of people,” he says,“economic strain and new immigrants — there will always be ademagogue that stitches these two issues together and says,‘they’re the other.’”

“The truth is that 1 million Mexicans have gone home. They areleaving, and Donald Trump’s wall will only slow down theirdeparture,” Begala says. “What Trump is doing is demagoguing. He istelling lies and scapegoating the most vulnerable people in ourcountry. He is a bully and that is something I don’t want in mypresident.”

Despite being on opposite sides of the aisle, it’s clear thatCarlson and Begala agree that HR professionals, and all Americansreally, need to be on the lookout for how to deal with diversityand income inequality.

Check back soon for a SHRM 2016 recap. BenefitsPRO will have aslideshow with favorite moments from the conference.