UNFAIRNESS OF THE ECONOMY

“ . . . with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that what is happening in this [2016] campaign, for all its crazy-sounding dogmatism, isn’t so crazy at all. The developments within both parties reflect the long-standing anxieties that liberals and conservatives feel about the country, anxieties that have only grown sharper as time has passed. For liberals, the chief concern for thirty-five years now has been about the unfairness of the economy—virtual wage stagnation for most workers, huge gains for the top 1 percent, and the lax regulatory and enforcement regimes that have permitted those outcomes, along with slow recovery from the most recent recession.”

Michael Tomasky, “The Dangerous Election,” in the New York Review, March 24, 2016, pp: 4-6.