As we get further and further into election season, the economy as always, continues to be a campaign issue. Sure, there are claims that the economy is growing with unemployment under 5%, and there are counterclaims that the economy is stagnant and isn’t working for most people. Underneath everything, however, is the sense that while economic arguments are important (they always are), that this election involves issues that are more fundamental.

In recent elections, to the extent that there was anger and frustration (with whatever issue was there), that anger was directed at politicians (sometimes of both parties, or sometimes largely just at one party). And in this election, some of that is still there on both the left and the right as is evidenced by both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. However, what is relatively new is the anger directed at voters of one party, as a basket of deplorables.

Although some might argue that  the practice of writing off a large segment of the electorate was started by Mitt Romney and his infamous 47% comment, the difference is that his comment was a statement regarding the economic incentive of half of the electorate. In other words, he was saying that 47% of the population had no economic incentive to vote Republican. What Clinton was saying is that half of Trump’s support (roughly 25% of the population) are just God-awful human beings and that is why the will vote Trump. At least Romney left open the possibility that if and when the 47%’s economic situation changed, their economic incentive and vote might change. Clinton argued that “the 25%” were ultimately irredeemable, and this is ultimately problematic for economic stability.

The reason is that in addition to Clinton, much of what is colloquially known as the mainstream media rushed to defend (albeit with a few caveats) the assertion that a large fraction of center-right voting population is awful (not misguided, not misinformed, not possessing a legitimate point of view, but awful). Viewing a quarter of your population this way basically means that you don’t see these folks as legitimate human beings deserving of the same rights as everyone else. In short, it means that a significate fraction of the American elite, sees a significant political minority as deserving second class citizen status. To the extent that these folks don’t get their needs met or are abused by governmental infrastructure (think the IRS scandal), the center-left elite will simply judge that these folks are getting what they deserve.

I can think of nothing else that would inflame opinions against the elites more than this attitude. Not only does it guarantee that there will be more Trump-like candidates (assuming he loses) in our future (with all of the instability that will bring), but it also means that resistance to the elite agenda (whatever that is seen to be) will take on a much more dark and sinister tone. When a government is mobilized against a significant fraction of the population (25% in this case) to abuse them, it will very often provoke a “resistance by any means necessary is legitimate” attitude. In a country with roughly 300 million firearms, this is a recipe for IRA/Northern Ireland style actions, with all of the economic damage that would go along with it.

The reason that countries engaged in civil wars are not usually found at the top of many “the best of” economic lists is that a country with instability isn’t usually an attractive destination for investment. When countries become unstable, wealth flees. Thinking that you can shove ¼ of your population’s face in the mud forever, treat them as second class citizens, in a country that is armed, and continue to enjoy the fruits of economic stability is not an idea that is likely to be proven correct over the long run. And once an idea takes hold (resistance by any means necessary is legitimate), it is very hard to dislodge. Simply passing a law, or firing a couple of bureaucrats won’t do it. Instead of simply dismissing people who disagree with you as awful people, perhaps opening the mind and trying to understand them might be more productive. Otherwise, the people of the United States will find themselves learning that the country is rich, because it is politically stable, not the other way around. Countries around the world have been forced to re-learn this lesson the hard way. It would be a shame if the U.S. ended up joining their ranks.

Whatever else may be going on with this election season, it is becoming increasingly clear that something in the West is fundamentally shifting, and that historians in the future will likely be looking at the times through which we are living as time before massive upheaval. We have been here before. Usually, before massive change that fundamentally upends the status quo, there are rumblings that may go unnoticed at first, and it is only in hindsight that we can understand their meanings. For example, the Solidarity Movement in communist Poland presaged the ultimate collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, even though it took 10 years. The fact that far-right political parties in Europe have gradually been gaining political clout and that the Tea Party in movement in America broke out and is now a faction of the Republican Party are rumblings that suggest something is changing.

One major factor that has shifted is that faith in the institutions of government are low, especially in America. The reasons are varied, but one factor is that many people have lost trust in the fundamental honesty and good faith of the governing class (i.e. political, media, and academic establishments).

For example, with Greece being in periodic crisis and never actually meeting the conditions to qualify for Eurozone membership, the Euro elites have been desperate to continue to bailout Greece (with German money) to keep them in the Eurozone. They have consistently implied to the taxpayers (German) that if Greece is allowed to exit the Eurozone, then there will be a massive economic downturn. The more hysterical among the political class have assured us that such an outcome might have provoked a global economic downturn. If country whose GDP accounts for 2% of the total E.U. GDP can by exiting the Eurozone provoke even a European political crisis let alone a global economic crisis, then the global economy is extremely fragile and will be knocked down by anything. The point is that this hysteria is absurd, to the point that anyone can see it.

Or another example was the recent Brexit vote. While the ultimate impact (positive or negative) for the British won’t be known for many years, the hysteria in some elite quarters implied that a Brexit might lead to a Soviet-style economic collapse. Anybody with any sense could conclude that Britain had not become a world economic power only after it joined the E.U. While a Brexit might ultimately not be economically beneficial for Britain in the long run, that it would lead to bread lines and empty store shelves was simply not something that was plausible. And the fact that the British stock market is now higher than before the vote makes many of those formerly respected elites look very foolish.

Yet another example is the government “shutdown” a few years ago in the U.S. As a result of Congress and Obama’s failure to agree to a budget, the government supposedly ran out of funding and had to shut down for a bit. Except that it didn’t. A more accurate description would have been a government with reduced staff. The disagreement between Obama and Congress was a reduction in government spending that ultimately would have reduced discretionary government spending (roughly about 15% of the total budget) back to 2010 levels. The hysteria from the media regarding the proposed minor cuts was such that one would have thought the Republicans were proposing a wholesale repeal of the New Deal. When the “shut down” happened, the bureaucracy deliberately responded by making sure that cuts were painful and impacted as much of the public as possible. In other words, the bureaucracy had choices as to which functions that they could keep going during the “Shut Down” and which ones that they could continue, and they chose to cut the ones with maximum public impact. The claim that “there just isn’t enough money” was credible, only if one believes that government agencies are 100% efficient. A budget that was enough to provide these services in 2010 suddenly wasn’t going to be enough a couple of years later. To many non-elites, the U.S. government came to appear more as an extortionist racket than a true government trying to do its best with what it had.

What these examples, and many others, do is reinforce the perception that government (and government policy) is being run for the elites and that common people are left paying for a system that benefits them only tangentially (or actually works against their interests in some cases). The fact that elites and their media enablers propagate fiction that is visible and obvious gives credence to the notion that the system is rigged in favor of the elites and that they are willing to say anything to try and maintain this system. Furthermore, the fact that they seem to scheme to avoid making the hard decisions (i.e. ones that won’t be in their best interests personally, but might be what the country as whole needs) undermines respect for them and the legitimacy of their leadership.

In short, the political-economic system that has been in place over the last couple of generations in the West is being challenged, and the mainstream political/media establishment doesn’t seem to have a good answer for it, especially since the reality has evolved to the point that their institutionalized solutions are no longer adequate. Trying to engage in deception with the population does nothing but undermine the elites position further. By undermining their leadership position, they open the door to demagogues whose solutions are likely to result in less than optimal outcomes for everyone.