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Our Cassandra complex: post scriptum on Trump and Clinton

Back on 30 May, in an article we published on this Blog, we had taken an unambiguous stance: Bernie Sanders was the only candidate who could beat Trump. We had so many doubts about Hillary Clinton as a successful candidate for the Democratic Party: now that the American voters have proven us right, perhaps you may want to have a look at our article once again. But before you do so, we would like to add a couple of remarks.

Trump won the Electoral College thanks to his performance in the Rust Belt States. Obama had taken them all except Indiana in 2012; this year Trump did not only win Ohio, but he also flipped Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and (if confirmed) Michigan, which had not gone red in a presidential election since the Eighties. Those voters had in the first place shown enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders’ social-democratic and protectionist Agenda: but their party did not hear them.  So they ended up by sending a businessman to the White House, who may appall intellectuals and ladies in super trendy eco-fur coats, but was smart enough to speak up against the free-market common sense on which Republicans and Democrats in Washington agree.

The unexpected support for Sanders, and then the equally unexpected success of Trump have shown that the majority of American voters reject the neoliberal agenda with anger, and is no longer available to put up with candidates who support it: they are waiting for a progressive party to give them voice.