LC

The story really starts in 2008. We had the global financial crisis, where we saw neoliberal global capitalism collapse in on itself. A lot of people underestimate the damage that was done, but we were days and weeks away from the milk not getting delivered. It was that kind of an economic failure.

And we never really addressed the structural problems with our economy that made that kind of collapse possible. And so the recovery that we got was slow and it was not nearly complete. Tens of millions of American workers who had a single full-time job that paid the bills before the financial crisis are now working precariously in two and three part-time jobs trying to make ends meet. We bailed out the big banks with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money, on the promise that the banks wouldn’t foreclose on people’s homes, and then they started foreclosing on homes at a record rate.

And so ever since then you’ve seen the center of American and global politics being hollowed out. The center is not holding anymore. So there are large populist movements on both the left and the right, because people are looking for answers, and the mainstream of American politics is no longer providing them. You saw that in 2011 with the Occupy movement, as short-lived as it was, and throughout the world with the Arab Spring uprisings.

And then in 2016 you saw the rise of Bernie Sanders on the left and Donald Trump on the right, and this rejection of the center of both parties. That’s because there’s a recognition on the part of tens of millions of people, at least on the subconscious level, that the center of American politics in both parties are the ones responsible for 2008.