The other morning, I was laying in bed, watching television, and happened to turn on the show “Morning Joe”, the morning talk show aired on MSNBC. Morning Joe is hosted by former Congressman, Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, and Mika Brzezinski.
During the 2nd hour of the show, the trio had a lengthy discussion with Mike Barnicle, Mark Halperin, Elise Jordan, and Chris Cilliza. During this conversation, they spoke of the mistakes made by the mainstream media, which helped to fuel the candidacies of Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders.
They spoke of the elitism of the mainstream media, the class divisions in America, and how we got to where we are today.
They also spoke of how our economy in America has been on a steady decline, for the better part of the last 30 years. Only 3 factors have sustained us from total collapse during that time period – the tech bubble of the 1990s (which gives false credit to Bill Clinton for the prosperity of that decade), the housing bubble of the 2000s (which crashed during the Bush administration and brought our economy down with it), and the spending bubble we are presently in, fueled by a tool utilized by the Federal Reserve, called Quantitative Easing.
The Bernie Sanders campaign was largely buoyed by millennial voters, who feel they have no voice in our country anymore. They were born shortly before 9/11, and have experienced mostly terrorism, war, economic despair, a severe lack of quality jobs, and little hope for the future.
Mr. Trump’s campaign has been largely buoyed by middle-class and poor Americans, lacking college degrees, who lost their jobs to outsourcing, which resulted from damaging trade policies, who are fed up with the direction our nation is heading in, and the tone-deaf politicians in Washington, D.C.
We are living in a truly surreal era, with an electorate that has demonstrated quite loudly that it simply does not care about ideas, or policies, or a specific platform. Mrs. Clinton, a candidate who pretends to be against Wall St. while making speeches TO Wall St. and taking their money, is the Democrat nominee. A candidate so fatally flawed by horrendous untrustworthy numbers, who is a hypocrite in every sense of the word, is likely to be our next President.
Mr. Trump, a man who has crumpled up the Republican Party platform and bucked conservatism countless times, was the runaway choice of Republican voters. As a candidate, he has espoused protectionist trade proposals, advocated for single-payer healthcare during the primaries, encouraged his supporters to assault protesters, and has a strange obsession with Twitter. Yet for some inexplicable reason, earns comparisons to the late Ronald Reagan.
In a recent article, I blamed Trump supporters for placing us in a perilous place, significantly risking losing the House and Senate, and the White House for the 3rd consecutive time. I stand by that blame, because the writing was on the wall LONG ago, and most in the party saw it. But, the Trump voters didn’t.
It would seem that the electorate has given up on voting with their brains, and has chosen to let their hearts guide them. It’s always a dangerous method to rely on, because emotion is volatile and dynamic, while rational thought is the most sane path possible.
Fear for the future. Anger towards political elites that don’t care about their fear and discontent. And, helplessness among the people to be the stewards of their own lives.
The future is as tenuous as it’s been at any point in our nation’s history. If only we could fast-forward this recording, and see where we end up.
Or maybe, just maybe, the thought of that is just too scary.