Here are a few thoughts on the subject.
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In 2008 fully 84 percent of the public said they were dissatisfied. And no wonder—we were in the midst of a long and questionable war on the brink of a major recession. But to really understand today’s angry voters, have a look at the response in 2014. Although there’s a bit of improvement, in the face of better economic numbers and withdrawal from Iraq, we still have fully 75 percent of the public expressing dissatisfaction with the way things are going. Unfavorable views of the Democratic Party have increased as have unfavorable views of the Republican Party. And, fifty-eight percent of the public thinks the two parties are doing such a bad job that a third party is needed.
That’s an angry electorate—one that is personified these days by Donald Trump but that emerged for the first time in the 2010 elections when the Tea Party surprised everyone, including the Republican Party establishment, with their strength. There is an inchoate feel to this anger when it comes to traditional public policy issues. Bernie Sanders’ voters are mad at Wall Street, but so are some of Trump’s voters. Everyone’s mad about the mess in the Middle East, but some would carpet bomb large swaths of territory while others would rely on Arab “coalitions,” and others would ignore them. As my colleague E.J. Dionne writes in his new book “Why the Right Went Wrong,” Americans today have become so divided that they “were now divided even in their alienation.”
But what does unite the angry voters is the profound sense that something is very, very wrong with today’s leaders. The anger at them goes a long way towards explaining how and why experience has become a dirty word in this campaign—just ask Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Apparently some voters have concluded that only by breaking the mold in a big way—by electing a billionaire with no government experience or a Socialist—can America be saved.
