ArcaMax

And the answer is: Because the elites happen to be elites in a very anti-elitist year.

Much has been said about how this is a year defined by voter anger. Don't overlook voter frustration.

Sanders' voters are expressing their frustration over half-stepping pragmatists like President Obama who gave up on the idea of single-payer Medicare-like health care for all without even trying to present a formal proposal.

And Trump voters are expressing their frustration with Republican elites who have avoided addressing such touchy but important issues as illegal immigration, loss of U.S. jobs in complicated trade deals and the survival of popular entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.

Trump rose above the herd of other hopefuls by offering his own special version of cafeteria conservatism. He stands firm on most of the Republican and conservative agendas, but strays from the corporate conservatives to back the blue collars on immigration, trade and entitlements.

Call it "conservative correctness." He may have offended many women and minorities with his anti-PC shoot-from-the-lip insults. But ironically a new RAND survey reveals him to be right in tune with his supporters. They express resentments toward racial minorities and undocumented immigrants, Rand found, but also favor "progressive economic policies."

Yes, Democrats are not the only folks who care about losing their health care. Yet Sanders has not had more than marginal luck at appealing to working class conservatives, partly because Trump has drowned out him and just about everyone else.

Yet both Trump and Sanders are playing to a lot of magical thinking in the electorate. Both become more than a little fuzzy when it comes to financing their generous programs. Nonpartisan experts say Sanders' plan would fall trillions of dollars in the hole within a few years.

And Trump has not explained quite how he would finance the wall he wants to build on the Mexican border if Mexico doesn't want to do it -- or how he would round up and expel an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Details, details. What's important to Trump's and Sanders' supporters seems not so much to be how they would enact their agenda than the very fact that they are giving voice to the issues that have frustrated so many voters for so long.

In many ways, both parties brought this leadership dilemma on themselves. They took too many of their voters for granted. That's bad politics, regardless of party.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.