Why Trump ran away with Iowa

The mainstream media still don’t get it.

This morning’s New York Times tried to describe it and utterly failed:

“Donald J. Trump’s decisive victory in Iowa revealed a new depth to the reservoir of devotion inside his party. For eight years, he has nurtured a relationship with his supporters with little precedent in politics. He validates them, he entertains them, he speaks for them and he uses them for his political and legal advantage.
This connection — a hard-earned bond for some, a cult of personality to others — has unleashed one of the most durable forces in American politics.” … In the first chance Americans had to cast judgment on Mr. Trump since he tried to overthrow an election, many Iowa Republicans made clear they don’t judge him. They adore him.”

Oh, please.

Why is it so damned difficult for the media to see what’s going on?

For over 40 years, the median wage of non-supervisory workers — people paid hourly — has been stagnant or declined, even though the U.S. economy and American productivity have soared. The stock market continues to hit new records.

But people without college degrees, people who are not living in the nation’s largest cities, who are mostly white, who are older and tend to be more religious than the typical American — these people feel abandoned by the system. They feel demeaned, disrespected, and discarded.

And they are. The Democratic Party has written them off, preferring to go after “suburban swing” voters. The establishment Republican Party represents big corporations and Wall Street.

So where do they look? Who fills the void? He may be a sociopath and a criminal, a grifter and a fraud, a liar and a neofascist. But he’s at least theirs.

Robert Reich is a professor at Berkeley and was secretary of labor under Bill Clinton. You can find his writing at https://robertreich.substack.com/.