The 2008 American Financial Crisis was mainly due to the Republicans' screwing up the economy from 2000 to 2008. So in 2008 and 2012, Americans voted for a Democrat (Barack Obama) as President.
Today - 8 years after the Crisis - Americans are still in a bad shape. Unemployment is high and wages are low. So now they are asking: Is the problem something else? Is it something bigger, deeper and more fundamental? Their manufacturing jobs have gone to China. This is due to free trade. Their service jobs have gone to the Mexicans. This is due to immigration. And what is free trade plus immigration? Globalisation.
So this Presidential election is nothing but a revolt against globalisation - on both Left and Right. On the left, Democrats are coming out for the anti-globalisation Bernie Sanders - forcing Hillary Clinton to move further to the left. And on the right, Republicans are coming out for the anti-globalisation Donald Trump - making him the frontrunner. (The only difference between Sanders and Trump is that Trump is also a racist)
16 years into the 21st century, the people of the world's largest economy - and the Holy Land of capitalism - are revolting against globalisation. What does this mean for the future of America - and the world?
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The protectionist and anti-trade rhetoric in the primaries suggests that many Americans see global economic change in zero-sum terms. Asia rises, we decline. Economic inequality is reduced between countries, but widens within our own societies. Globalisation is no longer something we do, it is something that others do to us.
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