Maggie's Farm

The Unbearable Smugness
I am very weary of repeating "It isn't about Trump, it never was about Trump."
It is about the Political-Media Complex, it's lack of empathy for, sometimes outright malice toward, the Middle. While they actively work against the well being and future of regular everyday Americans, they still expect them to roll over and whizz in the air. DJT was the only one who was in a position to push back against Financialist-Globalist Interests. If Ike were to speak today, I don't think he would warn of the Military Industrial Complex, they are the VJ tem in comparison.

To quote The Deplorable Phantom
"Finally, the damage to the nation was so great, that they got up off their butts and voted for the rodeo clown because anyone else would have been more of the same. "
Yes, this and the fact that Trump could self finance.  The "more of the same", regardless of party, genuflect to the Globalists and the Financialists, for campaign funds, and party invites.
The Dems and the GOPe could have turned this around at any time, and still can, if they refocus on the very real concerns of  the Working Middle, you know those people who aren't interested in hand outs, subsidies or gaming the system but aspire to be self sufficient, productive and contributing.
There have been a few Dems and Reps who have stepped out and made this very case but luckily, for Trump, they have been spitting into the wind. Any attempt to actively work for the well being and a positive future for everyday working Americans will be scuttled by the Political-Media Complex. They reject even being accountable to the Working Middle.
Mostly the "more of the sames" lack the necessary self awareness and are too self serving to respond.   Trump is sure lucky in his enemies and critics.

 If there is a single stumbling block on the road to the future, it is the bureaucracy as we know it. ET HALL

I have a superficial awareness off Edward T Hall, the pioneer who wrote “Beyond Culture”; he wrote the bureaucracy has : “no soul, no memory, and no conscience…. They are self-serving, amoral and live forever. What could be more irrational? Changing them is almost impossible, because they function according to their own rules and bow to no man, not even the President of the United States, or a Prime Minister. Custom, human frailties (foibles), and the will to power keep our bureaucracies going. … Paradoxically, most bureaucracies are staffed largely with conscientious, committed people who are trying to do the right thing, but they are powerless (or feel powerless) to change things. None of which would be so serious if it weren’t that these are the very institutions on which we depend to solve all our major problems. Some answer must be found to bureaucracy.”

Dr. Hall was writing in the 70s (I think) but even so, he now appears so naive regarding the character of the political class and its media subordinates. I don’t think his generous description is true of today’s coiffed and credentialed Mandarins.  I think they are sly, underhanded, malicious, and all about style over substance, as pointed out by Mr Cummings . 
In case you haven’t guessed my hobby horse, is the Bureaucracy, by any other name the Technocracy, the Clerisy.  I think Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, nailed it when he wrote, “ To a greater or lesser extent, the story of this Euro-election has been the rise of the minor parties – some of them bizarre, some of them downright potty, but all of them united by a visceral dislike of the EU bureaucracy: its arrogance, its remoteness, its expense, its endless condescension and its manic and messianic belief in its right to legislate for all 500 million people in the EU."

I think it was Instapundit who had an article reminding us of how the regulator/bureaucrats f'd up light bulbs, washing machines, toilets..........

It is not just the deficits. In addition they hobble American business and suppress the revenues that would be generated along with all the tax revenues, not to mention the jobs.
Also, the stimulus spending went into a leaky bucket and a percentage that reached the employees, who are also consumers, flowed offshore.