It's been imposed top down and normal people are rising up and saying 'not in my name'. And whatever Trump might be like as a person, politically he's making it easier for people to speak up.
The observation for Brexit and Trump#1 was that there was a clash between the working employed class (not those at the very bottom) and the middle class beaucratic class and the celebrity class. The celebrity class pushed ideas and the management level class imposed it on those below them.
Trump didn't fit into the celebrity class neatly because he rubbed them up the wrong way and said things against the grain. He wasn't the middle management class.
So the working class were happier to vote for him because he was outside the clash with middle management.
We talked about this a lot in 2016/17.
What's truly frightening is that the Democrats didn't learn from this. And once again there's been a shed load of celebrity endorsements. No consideration as to how and why Trump's speeches which have a lower vocabulary level, resonant better in certain groups. Instead we just got more word salad. Harris definitely has been criticised about this.
It's about this concept of 'people like me'. Donald Trump doing a shit Dad dance or rambling like your dickhead of an uncle who you know is a twat - but he's YOUR twat rather than some distant Professor Yaffle. It's why you get the obligatory photos of politician with a pint in hand or eating fish and chips. They are trying to do that 'people like me' thing.
Politics across the western world has got hooked on chasing certain voters and taking other groups for granted. There's no effort to even try and engage with certain parts of the electorate because, well they aren't ever going to vote for your party. Why try tackling the issues in these communities? They aren't a vote winner. The 'people like me' thing really matters.
This whole establishment being closed to 'people like me' thing matters. When establishments start to remove the word woman or Christmas it matters. Not because it's about those words or subjects, but because it's about the closed decision making by do gooders being out of touch with 'people like me'.
Trump is the equivalent of the bloke you can imagine yourself talking to in the pub (or indeed church). But you can't imagine yourself in any situation or having a conversation with Harris. Maybe because she is a black woman, but more because of how she speaks and what she speaks about than anything else.
He's not polished and doesn't appear coached. That gives off this air of authentic to many that Harris can't replicate and compete with.
It makes no sense to anyone who values education or what Harris says. They are missing the point because they can't see the point. They are looking from the wrong angle.
If you don't value education and you don't care about a polished performance because that's not what people like you do, then you don't look at Harris as a candidate who you think can perhaps represent you best.
This is all about shifting where you are sitting and listening. Not just listening to the stuff you want to hear and understand.
It's about hearing the things you don't understand and going 'These aren't bad people. So why are they saying this?'. It's too easy to dismiss them as stupid. Stupid doesn't cut it. Even stupid people say things for valid reasons. They may draw incorrect conclusions, or phrase it badly but this doesn't mean they don't have a valid point and a valid argument.
Communication is about understanding that this happens at all levels of ability and education. Just because you don't know how to articulate something in the accepted polished fashion doesn't mean your argument itself is weak. It just means your ability to argue the case might be weaker.
It's like the innocent man who gets screwed over because he can't afford the expensive slippery lawyer to defend himself adequately against an unlawful arrest. The assumption without trial that all the police abide by the law, the lawyer upholds the law and the poor uneducated man must be guilty and this is reinforced in real life situations by economic inequality. Because social status. If you start to look at the world from the lens of the poor man the world looks different from the lens of someone training to be a lawyer and believing in the fairness of the law.
I don't think the Dems ever did that self reflection that was needed over this. And it makes me really angry. Likewise I do see Labour's risk of doing similar as very high because of the levels of arrogance and lack of self awareness involved.
If this was the first time round, I'd be less critical of the Dems. But it's not. There was 2016. And then the same messages were reflected in 2020 but they won.
This is actually the third time. And STILL I'm seeing a reluctance to see it.