The tragedy is that Americans think they are voting for a system that will increase their prosperity. Trump has told his supporters over and over, for example, that if we can just strike down the “evil Obamacare” he will put his magnificent plan into place, giving all Americans affordable access to the best health care imaginable. The fact he has no plan and no idea how to begin constructing one is entirely lost in jingoistic shouting about “socialism,” which too many Americans associate with authoritarian Soviet or Chinese communism.

It’s all propaganda, and the American working class has swallowed it, down to the last toxic dregs.

They remember a time when their working class grandparents, like mine, were prosperous and relatively stable.

They latch onto false hope from leaders who do not have their best interests in mind but know how to push their buttons.

The Democrats promised us the status quo this election. Trump promised a return to the glories to the past.

Almost half of voting Americans chose Trump’s hope, even though the other half of the nation recognizes it as the nonsense it is.

In my opinion, the problem is not Trump so much as it is the lack of any well-communicated alternative. The mainstream Democratic Party is afraid to offer more than the status quo.

And the status quo will never sell, because as you point out so well, it sucks.