The Politics of Backlash
“People want to be heard. They want to believe their voices matter. A January 2016 survey by the Rand Corporation reported that Republican primary voters are 86.5 percent more likely to favor Donald Trump if they ‘somewhat agree or ‘strongly agree’ with the statement, ‘People like me don’t have any say about what the government does.”’
.. The similarities between American and European politics are greater now than in many years because societies on both sides of the Atlantic face similar dilemmas. Sanders, Corbyn and Tsipras; Trump and Le Pen: The parallels are striking.
.. in recent decades the bottom third of the world’s population have gained “with many of them escaping destitution.” The middle third become richer, while the “top 1 percent, and to a lesser extent the top 5 percent, have gained significantly.” The losers have been the 20 percent below that top swathe, with stagnant real incomes or minimal gains. “They represent the working class in the United States and other advanced countries.”