TRUMP AND SANDERS POPULISTS BOTH

Trump and Sanders the Obverse and Reverse of A New American Political Coin

As in Europe where populist currents have recently muddied the political waters, now we find that we here in the USA are faced with the rise of a new populism occurring from both and right and left...from Trump and Sanders. The American system is badly flawed....the new populism may give us all hope that the American experiment is still alive and well.

I write this on the day after the 2016 New Hampshire nomination election. The turnout was dramatic and the results reveal cataclysmic change..like the geologic shifting of continental plates in the political firmament. The vaunted Clinton and Bush dynasties have been dethroned....we hope for good. Sanders wiped the floor with Clinton, taking virtually the entire state and every demographic category...except women over 65. Trump followed suit on the Republican side. He capture almost every district and proved that the pollsters were correct...and the talking heads on TV who claimed at every turn his voters were at his rallies for entertainment only and would not turn out to vote. They were dead wrong. .

What does it all mean? Perhaps finally, the American people, after being dragged through a bloody disastrous, three-trillion-dollar phony war, suffered through a Great Recession, were shocked and saddened by the inequitable and costly bail-out of the big banks, and then saddled for the last eight years with an uneven and stuttering economy----have finally caught on. Finally, they seem to understand that the political system on both sides of this duplicitous duopoly we call the American political system, has failed them for the last 40 years. Indeed they now understand how heavily the system is heavily stacked against them. During those decades the Republicans sliced and diced up the electorate with phony "hot button" issues (abortion, immigration, xenophobia, race baiting, "makers and takers", flag waving, etc. etc.) to achieve political dominance, while maintaining their laser-like focus on the needs and desires of the big-donor class for whom they really work. The Democrats, particularly under Clinton and Obama, played the same game, currying favor with Wall, Street, and big industry while lining up at the cash trough with the Republicans to take pay-offs from the same donor class. As for the donor class, they buy both Democrats and Republicans. They simply hedge their bets to insure they have a "winner" to control, whomever is elected. The Democrats play the same game, but perhaps not as effectively. They too, just abandoned their erstwhile working and middle class constituents as they made "triangulation" deals on immigration, trade polices, foreign wars, and labor policy which favored the big donors and the "one percenters". The middle class, working people, and the vast center of America were left to struggle as the economic tide ebbed and they were left mud stranded and "on their own". Over these years, wealth, income and political,power has become more and more concentrated in the hands of a very small minority...some 400 or so individuals and families who wield the bucks and the political power. That is not democracy...or even a faint shadow of what our Founders envisioned...it is something they abhorred....oligarchy. But today the hope of transformation to a government of "fairness" and "greatness" came in the form of the candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. .

Both Trump and Sanders oppose the dominance of big business interests in our political, foreign policy and economic lives. Since the beginning of the Reagan era, we have seen the economic demise of the middle class and the rise of a "big business only" society in which the needs and welfare of the great center of American population are left to stagnate and founder as wealth, income and political power migrated to a few very affluent individuals and families.

I am proud that, like me, both men come from the metropolitan area of New York. Both candidates arose to maturity in the mid to latter part the last century in the heyday of an American pluralism and a period of middle class economic stability and well being. Their ideas and values were formed, fired and quenched to strength on the tough streets of Brooklyn and Queens New York. They know of and appreciate the diversity and dynamism of the greater New York area, and both (yes. trump too) have risen from more humble origins to the pinnacle of American politics.

Trump expresses himself (sometime not so well) but with a passion to defend the American people from the collusion of mega donors, lobbyists, and government, and the GOP establishment. He decries the malfeasance of the big banks and Wall Street, and unfair trade and monetary practices of China and Mexico, from international companies moving jobs (and their corporate offices) offshore, as well as from the floods of illegal immigrants which weaken opportunities and lower wages for legal migrants and native workers.

So let us hope for the well being of our nation....