Thomas Frank: Why must the Trump alternative be self-satisfied, complacent Democrats?

Convinced that the country’s ongoing demographic shifts will bring victory for years to come, the party establishment acts like its candidates need do nothing differently

The year of our discontent rolls on, and now it is Indiana that hands victory to the insurgent senator Bernie Sanders and the protectionist demagogue Donald Trump.

Seven years have passed now since the last recession officially ended, and yet the country’s fury has scarcely cooled. To this day we remain angry at Wall Street; we rage against career politicians; and we are incandescent that the economic system seems to have been permanently “rigged” against working people. Median household income has still not recovered the levels of 2007. Wages are going nowhere. Elite bankers are probably never going to be held accountable for what they did. America is burning.