Harold Monteau: America stands at a crossroads with government

The discontent by both Conservatives and Liberals was signaled by the rise of two “non-establishment” Presidential Candidates in the person of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, both anti-establishment candidates who defied the “unwritten rules of party ascension” and ran very successful “maverick” campaigns. The “victory” of Hillary Clinton over Sanders is looked at with suspicion and distrust by pretty much everyone except the most steadfast supporters, but even some of them acknowledge that the process may have “favored” her candidacy under the un-written rules of Democratic Party Ascension. There is widespread belief by both Democratic rank and file and Republican rank and file that this election cycle is dominated by “big money” and will be decided by “big money” in the coming months with the Koch types on the Conservative side and the Wall Street Banker Elite and their billionaire patrons on the other.

There has been across-the-board cynicism created by the stripping of wealth from the middle class by the recession, usually in the form of devaluation of the real estate holding of the middle class represented by their homes, from which they expected to finance their retirement, and the almost catastrophic loss of retirement savings invested in banks and various investment funds that tanked after the real estate bubble burst. Failure of small businesses that suffered because of the prolonged lack of disposable income by the working class upon which they depended for payment of their loans also added to the crisis. Big Box Franchises and Fast Food Franchises weathered the storm a little better because of their ability to cut operations selectively without catastrophic loss associated with individual locations.

An associated phenomena with the building of aforementioned cynicism and distrust, was the advent of “Digital News” centered in “Social Networking” that has outpaced the “traditional media” sources that were and are suffering through their own crisis of confidence. The major networks are viewed as mere “tools” of their wealthy and corporate owners with Journalistic Balance and Fairness being displaced by either conservative or liberal propaganda. While the printed news still enjoys some modicum of the perception of neutrality, television news has become suspect unless, of course, one sticks to the source they agree with and refuse to watch the one that they disagree with.