I can’t claim to have foreseen the rise of Donald Trump, much less the fact that he would prevail, but in 2011, I published an article in Vanity Fair, titled “Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%,” that warned of conditions already existing, and steadily becoming worse, which were unjust in themselves and could easily lead to political instability. The article described the growth of inequality in America and argued that—leaving basic morality aside, as some are perfectly happy to do—it was in the interests of the people at the top of the wealth pyramid to create a more egalitarian society.

Since then, matters have only gotten worse. A study last year by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, published by the National Academy of Sciences, highlighted the sense of despair in America, where life expectancy is actually on the decline for segments of the population on account of suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, and obesity. The so-called recovery from the 2008 recession has, in fact, exacerbated the situation—91 percent of the gains in the first three years went to the wealthiest 1 percent of the population. The evident satisfaction with how things have been going, voiced by the Obama administration, clashed with the everyday experiences of 99 percent of the country. At the same time, the administration was funneling billions to the banks that had caused the financial crisis and the recession. (Top officials were very close to the bankers.) Meanwhile, only a pittance was given to beleaguered homeowners. I remember clearly, during the first conference call organized by candidate Barack Obama to formulate the Democratic response to the collapse of Lehman Brothers, in September 2008, I emphasized the importance of helping those who were losing their jobs and homes. The overwhelming sentiment of the group, dominated by bankers, was that my comments were a distraction from the task at hand.

The system was unfair—“rigged,” to use Trump’s term (though he was talking about something else). And it was a situation waiting to be exploited. Obama’s defense that he had to save the banks in order to save the economy doesn’t capture the totality of what, in fact, happened. Obama had to save the banks, sure, but he didn’t have to save the bankers and the shareholders and the bondholders. We broke the rules of capitalism in order to save those at the top—as we always do.

And then there was the matter of basic trust: the Obama administration had promised to do something about the direction in which America was going. The campaign motto was, “Change you can believe in.” There was certainly some of that sort of change in a number of areas, notably the environment, but there was none of it in key economic arenas—only more of the same. There is always a state of tension between stability and change. The year 2008 was one in which significant change might have occurred. But Obama voted for stability, with America’s economic policy guided by Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, and Larry Summers.

The latter two were from the Rubinite wing of the Democratic Party. Summers had been trained under Martin Feldstein, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan, and had served on his staff. Geithner had been Summers’s acolyte. He had been head of the New York Fed as the problems that eventually led to the financial crisis festered with hardly a peep from him that something was wrong. This was hardly a team to inspire trust that the administration would undertake policies that were good for all of America—and that proved correct.