A number of Trump voters told me they voted for him because they wanted someone who'd shake up Washington, drain the swamp, and get rid of crony capitalism. They saw Hillary Clinton as part of the problem.
These people aren't white nationalists. They're decent folks who just want a government that's not of, by, and for the moneyed interests.
Many are now suffering buyer's remorse. They recognize Trump has sold his administration to corporate lobbyists and Wall Street. "He conned us," was the most polite response I heard.
The big money that's taken over American politics in recent years has created the biggest political backlash in postwar American history -- inside both parties.
It's splitting the Republican Party between its large corporate patrons and a base that detests big corporations and Wall Street.
Trump is trying to straddle both by pretending he's a champion of the working class while pushing for giant tax cuts. But if my free-floating focus group in Kentucky and Tennessee is any indication, the base is starting to see through it.
Which you might think creates a huge opportunity for Democrats heading into the 2018 midterms and the presidential election of 2020.
Think again. Much of the official Democratic Party is still in denial, continuing to debate whether it should be on the proverbial "left" or move to the "middle."
But when it comes to getting big money out of politics and ending crony capitalism, there's no right or left, and certainly no middle. There's just democracy or oligarchy.
Democrats should be fighting for common-sense steps to reclaim our democracy from the moneyed interests -- public financing of elections, full disclosure of all sources of political funding, an end to revolving door between government and business, and attempts to reverse the bonkers Supreme Court decision "Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission."
For that matter, Republicans should be fighting for these, too.
Heres'a wild idea. What if the anti-establishment wings of both parties came together in a pro-democracy coalition to get big money out of politics?
Then it might actually happen.
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