What is going on in today’s politics is the general decline of America’s faith in its institutions, writes Peggy Noonan in the WSJ. “We feel less respect for almost all of them—the church, the professions, the presidency, the Supreme Court. The only formal national institution that continues to score high in terms of public respect (72% in the most recent Gallup poll) is the military.”
In New Hampshire, Ms. Noonan continues, the rejection of the establishment’s preferred candidates in both parties is the result of 15 years of failed presidencies.
It is middle-aged Sanders supporters who are more interesting. They know what they’re turning their backs on. They know they’re throwing in the towel. My guess is they’re thinking something like: Don’t aim for great now, aim for safe. Terrorism, a world turning upside down, my kids won’t have it better—let’s just try to be safe, more communal.
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The mainstream journalistic mantra is that the GOP is succumbing to nativism, nationalism and the culture of celebrity. That allows them to avoid taking seriously Mr. Trump’s issues: illegal immigration and Washington’s 15-year, bipartisan refusal to stop it; political correctness and how it is strangling a free people; and trade policies that have left the American working class displaced, adrift and denigrated. Mr. Trump’s popularity is propelled by those issues and enabled by his celebrity.
Read more here from Peggy Noonan, who congratulates the elites of both parties for getting us here. “They are the authors of the rebellion; they are a prime thing being rebelled against.”
More from Peggy Noonan on Trump and Sanders here:
