This year’s election is all about anger.
Donald Trump’s rise — the media’s poster child for this phenomenon — is all about the electorate’s anger over immigration. And the GOP establishment. And Hillary Clinton. There’s a reason Congressional approval rating continues to hover at an historically abysmal 9 percent.
On the left, voters aren’t quite as disgruntled, but Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign is a reflection of discontent with not only the Clinton political machine, but with Democratic establishment politics, as well. Left-leaning voters aren’t exactly thrilled with a party purported to support the working classes — and minorities — while remaining firmly entrenched with Wall Street. Never mind Hillary Clinton’s flimsy grasp of history (see: The Reagans and AIDS, and health care reform).
Overall, voters are disgusted with their choices on both sides of the aisle this year. A new poll conducted by the Purdue Institute for Civic Communication — in partnership with The Hill, C-SPAN and the polling firm Penn Schoen Berlandare — reveals more than half of eligible voters are “dissatisfied or embarrassed when they look at the 2016 presidential candidates.”
But voters aren’t the only disgruntled voices raised in this election cycle. After eight years of rage and disrespect (see: Joe Hill), Republicans are surprised — and outraged — that the seeds they’ve sown have suddenly borne fruit in the angriest candidate since George Wallace. And we all know what he was fighting for.
And the GOP’s consolation prize — Ted Cruz — is intensely disliked by his own Senate colleagues.
Former candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham once said of Cruz, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.”
The Democrats aren’t much better, fielding a candidate with maybe the lowest likability rating of either party, who’s also received as many subpoenas as endorsements.
The electorate itself remains as bitterly divided as ever, with gender, racial and class fissures opening wider with each wage disclosure, jobs report and police shooting. The only thing any of us can seem to agree on is that politicians are more out of touch with the rest of us than ever before. And, yet, we keep electing them.
Maybe we should be angry with ourselves.
Donald Trump did not concoct this seething pot of electoral rage. But he's definitely the biggest benefactor. It also helps to stir it once in a while.