The problem with Trump from that perspective is that Donald Trump is not exactly on the side of powerful unions, strong social safety nets, and taxing rich people. He did leverage anti-elite sentiment, but he did it unfortunately with walls and "keep the Muslims out", not unions, safety nets, and progressive taxation. Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets.
I do agree that people are aware of the economic problems (hence the Sanders crossover in particular), I just think that identity politics right now is more powerful than economic politics in the United States. It seems like the issues that dominate the media headlines on "the left" and "the right" -- and, in fact, the angry rants on my Facebook feed, anecdotally, are very identity politics oriented. Unfortunately I think politicians take advantage of this. A classic example of this being North Carolina's "transgender bathroom" controversy. In my opinion, the provision that was far worse of that law was the aspect that limited individual cities from raising the minimum wage (economic politics). But it did not dominate the headlines, the identity politics did.
You are right that people are tired of Big Capital / globalist elites. They have reason to be. But to reverse this trend, we need stronger protection of the service industry (which is in effect the new manufacturing job) and we need stronger education systems to promote knowledge work. As long as identity politics obscures economic policies, I'm not sure how this is possible.
> Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets.
Actually a big part of his appeal was that he was strongly for attempting to keep existing safety nets. Particularly when compared to the Paul Ryan "true conservative" wing.
His tax policy is a little more mysterious because it's fairly clear from his speeches that he wasn't reading any of the proposals that his campaign was putting out.
He worked in construction, real estate, and running hotels / casinos. And he tried to avoid hiring illegals. So he has a history of working productively with unions. Although I'm sure there are some nasty disputes in his past.
So I'd say he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee.
> he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee.
That would be true if he had the first interest in actually governing. So far his approach appears to be "Hand off decisions to existing Republicans and talk shit on Twitter".
Trump was not a labor candidate and if there had been one in the race I think that candidate would have performed very well vs Clinton. Trump's strategy was successful mostly because he was allowed to continue unchallenged.
edit:
To clarify I meant that if there were a pro-labor candidate in the general election Trumps populist message would have been less effective.
Bernie didn't make it to the general election so he never ran against Trump.
Trump won the election by getting votes that mattered. We use an electoral system, not a popular vote. If the popular vote mattered both candidates would have run different campaigns so voter behavior would have also changed. It's possible that Trump would have still won the election if the popular vote were the deciding factor.
I do agree that people are aware of the economic problems (hence the Sanders crossover in particular), I just think that identity politics right now is more powerful than economic politics in the United States. It seems like the issues that dominate the media headlines on "the left" and "the right" -- and, in fact, the angry rants on my Facebook feed, anecdotally, are very identity politics oriented. Unfortunately I think politicians take advantage of this. A classic example of this being North Carolina's "transgender bathroom" controversy. In my opinion, the provision that was far worse of that law was the aspect that limited individual cities from raising the minimum wage (economic politics). But it did not dominate the headlines, the identity politics did.
You are right that people are tired of Big Capital / globalist elites. They have reason to be. But to reverse this trend, we need stronger protection of the service industry (which is in effect the new manufacturing job) and we need stronger education systems to promote knowledge work. As long as identity politics obscures economic policies, I'm not sure how this is possible.