Sanders, Trump Give Voice to Frustrated Voters

After the New Hampshire primary, a new narrative to describe Campaign 2016 has taken shape. It is a narrative of class warfare that, despite the smiles on the candidates' faces, is tearing both parties apart.

Hillary Clinton's loss to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic contest was stunning, not only in its scale but also in its roots. Sanders won the poor and working class -- voters with income of less than $50,000 -- by two-to-one.

Eight years ago, Clinton repeatedly beat then-Sen. Barack Obama among working-class white voters. Not this time.

Sanders also clobbered Clinton among young voters by almost six-to-one and three to one among independents. Sanders even edged Clinton out among young women voters, a core constituency for her campaign.

Who did she win? Most significantly: voters with incomes of more than $200,000 a year.

That's ironic in light of how billionaire developer and TV showman Donald Trump has become a hero of that group on which Clinton used to rely: white working-class voters.

After Trump lost to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Iowa Republican caucuses, it looked as though Trump's ability to turn his high polling numbers into actual votes might be as full of hot air as his windy no-Teleprompter speeches.

But that vision evaporated after Trump won New Hampshire with a decisive 34 percent of the vote -- twice as much as his closest competitor, Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

With other leading hopefuls Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio slipping down below Kasich, Stop-Trump Republicans were left without a single Trump rival to rally around as the contest moves to South Carolina, where polls show another rock-star reception awaits The Donald.

Why and how did the elites of both parties suddenly lose so much of their traditional ability to steer the nomination process toward their preferred safe, sane and reasonably electable favorites?

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.)