Alienated

Mike Flynn writes at Breitbart,

A Super PAC tied to Ohio Governor John Kasich is annnouncing a new multi-million dollar effort to torpedo Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination.

Trump’s continued dominance of national and state-level polling has vexed the GOP establishment and pushed it to near-panic as voting nears.

A recent survey of public attitudes by Reuters/Ispos, though, suggests caution for the GOP establishment.



...According to the Reuters survey, 58 percent Americans say they “don’t identify with what America has become.” While Republicans and Independents are the most likely to agree with this statement, even 45 percent of Democrats share this feeling.

More than half of Americans, 53 percent, say they “feel like a stranger” in their own country.

...The reasons for their alienation are both cultural and economic. The economic anxiety sparked by the financial crisis in 2007-8 has likely pushed them further away from the mainstream political parties. This isn’t solely a phenomenon on the right, as the resurgent popularity of explicitly socialist policies on the left attest.

...Its zeal to derail his campaign carries huge risks for the party, however. The Trump phenomenon is not simply the product of a media-savvy, hyper-personality candidate. It is drawing strength from very real sentiments of a huge block of voters. The Republican party may take out Trump, but it alienates these voters at its peril.

Read more here.