WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — America is hurting.

The economic blight that disfigures much of this country while Washington lawmakers fiddle explains why the populist messages of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are dominating this presidential campaign.

The Vermont senator seeking the Democratic nomination hammers away at inequality, and his message is resonating with millions because this inequality is palpable across the country.

Outside the prosperous enclaves in Manhattan, Chevy Chase, and San Francisco that generate much of the political chatter in this country are wide swaths of incredible depression — boarded-up windows, closed-down businesses, visible poverty.

In my latest crosscountry drive to spend the holidays with family, I saw this blight firsthand passing through Shelbina, Mo., where once upon a time I visited my great-grandfather’s farm — an idyllic playground for a child.

Now, according to local residents, the farms are owned by larger groups, young people have deserted the town because there are no jobs, and the place seems to be literally falling apart. When one commercial section burned down, nothing was rebuilt because no one had any money for that.

Nearby Macon, Mo., seemed equally bleak. On an earlier road trip, I visited a cousin in Owensboro, Ky., which had its share of derelict buildings, boarded windows and vacant lots as well.

It is a reality that makes the Hunger Games movies painful to watch, because the dystopia depicted there is not so far removed from our current situation.

Perhaps we have grown inured to these sights during the nation’s long slide into economic decline, but no visitor from outer space would judge this country to be the world’s most prosperous, no matter what the statistics say.

A new set of ads from Sanders shows the candidate at town hall meetings driving this message home. In one, he talks of people working “incredibly long hours” with little to show for it.

“If you work 40 hours a week in America, you should not live in poverty,” he says to those attending, diverse in age but mostly white.

While not denying that the country still has problems from its legacy of racism, Sanders has emphasized the main issue is a “rigged economy” that is impoverishing black and white alike.

In another new ad, Sanders rejects the notion that Social Security benefits should be cut at a time when senior poverty is increasing.

In another ad, a nurse bemoaning how many people don’t get health care says she supports the Vermont senator because he understands “how pharmaceutical companies and major medical companies are ripping us off.”

And a fourth ad has Sanders looking into the camera and asking rhetorically “Is the economy rigged?” The not-so-rhetorical answer is that “the 15 richest Americans acquired more wealth in two years than the bottom 100 million people combined.”

His remedies are higher taxes for Wall Street, living wages for all, and equal pay for women, among others.

“The middle class will continue to disappear unless we level the playing field,” he says.

Trump’s appeal — beyond the insults, the racial slurs, and the red-meat xenophobia — is similar. America is broken, and this successful wheeler-dealer and manager is just the guy to fix it. Believe him.

“Make America Great Again” is a slogan Middle America understands because they know the country is not great right now.

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has had to match Sanders’ populism, and talk the same talk, if in a more sophisticated, Wellesley-educated version. Heaven alone knows if she has any intention of living up to her promises.

Trump’s rivals for the Republican nomination have not been able to counter him because they are not willing, as he is, to blame Wall Street, trade pacts that drain domestic jobs, and political corruption for the misery in this country. They aren’t even able to reject his bigotry and xenophobia.

The pundits in their prosperous enclaves continue to scratch their heads over Trump’s success. For them, “populism” is a derogatory term.

If you tell someone in the Midwest that you live in Washington, D.C., the frequent response is a snort of derision, sometimes followed by a tirade in which the kindest words are “loonie,” “insane,” and “la-la land.”

“And they’re surprised about Trump?” one service manager in Kansas said to me. “They don’t expect a backlash?”

Perhaps the only surprise, given the sad state of the country, is that it took this long for a political backlash to develop. Maybe Barack Obama’s bait-and-switch on “hope and change” — which brought little change and dashed many hopes — was the last straw.

As for pundits who have trouble understanding the appeal of Trump and Sanders — take a road trip, find out for yourselves.