The "Other side" is scared, not dumb. Molly Ivins used to point this out. For the white lower middle class, life has been a slow downhill slide since the mid-1970s. Those are the people who support Trump and the Tea Party.
Unfortunately, exploiting that fear is politically effective. This is a problem with a long history. There are records of it back as far as Cicero.
It's not their fault that they don't know what to do. Nobody knows what to do. We have all this productivity, and we don't need that many people to make all the stuff. Economic policymakers don't know how to deal with that. If you want to look for dumb, look at what comes out of economists. There's a sizable faction that says there can never be a shortage of demand. Tell that to Wal-Mart's CEO, who says their customers are spent out.
(Sometimes they really are dumb, as in that Oregon "militia" group camping out in the bird sanctuary.)
Unfortunately, exploiting that fear is politically effective. This is a problem with a long history. There are records of it back as far as Cicero.
It's not their fault that they don't know what to do. Nobody knows what to do. We have all this productivity, and we don't need that many people to make all the stuff. Economic policymakers don't know how to deal with that. If you want to look for dumb, look at what comes out of economists. There's a sizable faction that says there can never be a shortage of demand. Tell that to Wal-Mart's CEO, who says their customers are spent out.
(Sometimes they really are dumb, as in that Oregon "militia" group camping out in the bird sanctuary.)