Other than flat panel TV's and cell phones, a lot of people in "middle America" have gotten absolutely shit out of the last 20 - 30 years. Work's more for less and no advancement. The future is ever more uncertain. Healthcare's gone from expensive to unachievable. Illegal immigration has produced considerable downward pressure on lower-end jobs as well as non-wage benefits (illegals have no leverage with respect to benefits, and this places additional pressure on everyone else to give up on them).

My cousin's little old farm town in the middle of Nebraska has become significantly "hispanified." And while many of them are nice enough, a significant fraction are not. Regardless, it has produced a very significant, dramatic local social and cultural shift. Which many remaining voters find quite disruptive.

Republican as well as Democratic "internationalists" turned their backs on these potential voters and with varying forms of rhetoric about "the greater good."

Well, there's only so much personal sacrifice people are going to put up with.

Trump... well, whatever you think about truth and falsehood with respect to him and the people immediately around him (campaign, advisors, talking heads, opportunists, hangers-on... oh, and his family), he gave this demographic a message to vote for.

In the U.S., social cohesion has always been limited and reinforced significantly through force and intimidation rather than cooperation. But, in a politically significant while not / no longer economically and popularly dominant demographic, it wore thin enough to engender this disruption.

The "internationalists" forgot the first rule of politics and of social stability: To take care of your own. Well, they came to mis-identify "their own" in terms of their personal economic benefit as opposed to the polities they formally represented.

Having watched my own little economic sector, tech., get run over by outsourcing and ageism, I have very little sympathy for them nor for the economic friends they thought they were representing.

P.S. I'm no Trump supporter. I'm simply saying, neither am I surprised by what's happened. Except, perhaps, than he actually achieved the Presidency. The Clinton camp and the DNC can hang that one squarely around their necks.

P.P.S. I'm not particularly defending the Trump voter, either. A lot of nastiness and short-sightedness and myopic self-interest in that camp, too. Nonetheless, they are voters -- members of society -- and trying to quietly flush them down the drain was not a particularly astute political strategy.

P.P.P.S. There is also another -- and perhaps the dominant -- side to Trump support: People who believe simply that you get what you deserve. Regardless of circumstances. They are doing ok -- well, even. And that they entirely deserve credit for that. Anyone else? Not their problem. And if the other person's circumstances leave them down and out: Well, they deserve that.

Some of these people: They will take and take. I experienced this personally, this past year, trying to help one of them out of difficult straights. As their circumstances improved -- not insignificantly through considerable dint of effort on my part -- they became less grateful rather than more, and a criticism of others that I thought they were initially beginning to see past, returned in full force.

Direct kindness ultimately had no influence on their perspective and behavior -- no matter what words and attitudes they used to initially solicit and gain support.

And THIS really scares me, more than a bit. Or divests me somewhat more of my own apparently mistaken ideals.

Some of these people, are simply intractable. There is no compromise with them, no coming to a mutual understanding.

Were the "internationalists" right, simply to try to leave them behind? No -- even if they are intractable, simply ignoring them is short-sighted, in its own fashion.

Anyway, I've glued enough P.S.'s onto this comment that reflects my continuing struggle to find my own way through these set of personalities written wholesale onto our current politics.