I’m not saying that Donald Trump is going to win the November election. But I think there is something afoot in this country these days that doesn’t bode well for a candidate like Hillary Clinton. People are truly fed up. For at least a couple of decades now, people have felt like nobody in Washington is looking out for them. And you know what? They’re probably right. The United States of America is supposed to be a constitutional republic. That means elected officials from the president on down are representatives of the people. It also means that executive, legislative and judicial are separate, distinct branches with checks and balances in place. But for the sake of this column, let’s focus on that people part. Elected officials are supposed to be representatives of the people. The idea is that we are governed by a citizen legislature. Somebody from our area – a citizen – gets elected by the rest of us citizens. This citizen legislator’s mission in Washington is to vote the will of the people who elected him. Do you feel like that’s what’s happening these days? Do you feel like your representative is voting in your best interest? Do you feel like most laws and policies coming out of Washington these days are in your best interest? There always has been a disconnect between Washington D.C. policymakers and the general public, but lately, it’s become a lot worse. And I think people are just done with the whole mess. After the Tea Party class came to power in 2012, there was a lot of disappointment among voters. That class of lawmakers was supposed to inch us back toward constitutional principals and a balanced budget. The result? Record deficits and a ton of executive orders. People feel powerless. Their ideas aren’t gettin’ in – even when they organize a movement and get their candidates elected. But it’s not surprising. It takes a lot of money to get elected. Politicians spend a lot of time raising money. Politicians take a lot of money from a lot of people. The notion that this is money with no strings attached is absurd. Attemps to get the money out of politics over the years – campaign finance reform – has been a joke. In fact, each time campaign finance reform passes, unintended consequences generally bring more money into politics, not less. It takes a billion dollars to elect a president these days. So it only makes good business sense for corporate types to invest in lawmakers. And invest they do. Seriously, why do you suppose we have laws that allow giant corporations to park profits offshore to avoid income taxes? Why do you suppose we have laws that allow U.S. companies to move their headquarters to Ireland to avoid income taxes via tax inversions. (To be fair, the Obama administration cracked down on tax inversions a bit in 2014 and derailed a few proposed overseas deals.) Why are there laws that allow outsourcing of U.S. jobs to countries where labor rates are cheap? Are laws like these favored by the majority of American voters? Do you suppose any of those laws would pass if the Average Joe got to vote on them. Of course not. But they all passed, didn’t they? I wonder why? Why would a Washington D.C. politician vote the polar opposite of his constituents’ wishes? You know why. It’s because we don’t live in a constitutional republic anymore. We live in a corporate oligarchy in which the folks with the most money get to make the rules. And when you get to make the rules, you tilt the game in your favor. It’s human nature. If you ever wonder why economic policy in the U.S. promotes income inequality, there’s your answer. Lets be honest, all this stuff could be shut down overnight if lawmakers really cared about what voters thought. So yeah, people are fed up. And here’s why I think this spells trouble for Hillary Clinton. She’s talking about building on the legacy of Barack Obama. But I don’t think people are all that thrilled about their collective lot in life under Obama. I think people want change. They want someone who will shake things up. Now, I don’t know if that’s really Donald Trump. I mean, he’s one of the guys who’s been buying politicians all these years. Nonetheless, I think there is the potential for a significant backlash against the same old, same old during the November election. And nobody represents the same old, same old more than Hillary Clinton. You know, same old stagnant wages, overpriced health care, education problems, housing problems, immigration problems, corporations run amok. Anybody feeling the American dream? Whether average American voters will see Trump as a viable alternative remains to be seen. Will they see him as someone who can fix all this stuff, shake things up and make things better for the middle class? Will they see him as someone who will look out for their best interests? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure they don’t see Hillary that way. Beyond that, people simply don’t trust Hillary – and with good reason. A State Department report releasd this week shows she violated department rules by using a homebrewed email server. The same report says she failed to properly preserve federal records as secretary of state. Remember when she said didn’t break any state department rules? Not true, but, incredibly, she’s still saying that. Here’s Hillary on Thursday, doubling down on her untennable position after the state department report came out: “This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state. It was allowed. And the rules have been clarified since I left,” Clinton told ABC News. Is she delusional? The report says just the opposite. And, of course, there’s the whole issue of her statement – under oath and penalty of perjury at the outset of the investigation – that she turned over all of her government emails to the state department. Turns out that wasn’t true. Again, I am not saying Trump will win the election. But I get a strong sense the electorate is fed up with people like Hillary.
