Simply put?
The media missed the story. And its the same story - whether the topic is Donald Trump or the Brexit vote that now has the United Kingdom on the way out of the European Union. For that matter, this story popped up earlier in, of all places, Wisconsin, when Governor Scott Walker took on public employee unions and defeated them in a furious fight that even had him running in - and winning - a recall election forced by his opponents.
The story, at its essence, revolves around a public fed up with an elitist, look-down-their-noses Establishment that repeatedly communicates an open contempt for the people who pay the bills for all the various utopian schemes that never seem to work. It is a story that pits plain old fashioned common sense against those who have spent far too much time in an elitist bubble working with, socializing with and talking with each other to the exclusion of average Americans - or Brits and Wisconsinites as in the other examples.
Over at Vox, as flagged by NewsBusters own P.J. Gladnick, there is a story on the shock at the Brexit decision coming from students at Oxford University. Here’s an excerpt that crystallizes the elitist problem exactly:
“‘I was so, so sure it wouldn’t happen,’ (19-year old Oxford medical student Evie Rothwell said. ‘I was 100 percent sure.’
In Oxford especially, there’s this liberal atmosphere. You’re surrounded by so many like-minded people you forget there’s an outside world," said (19-year old Oxford student Mary) Winn. "But especially in working-class communities, the Leave campaign was very popular. You do forget that being in an environment like this.”
The words should ripple like a cautionary tale across the Atlantic, added (Oxford student Jack) Lennard.
"I have about 2,000 friends on Facebook — and all but three were voting ‘Remain.’ That tells you what kind of bubble you can live in, and how you can delude yourself it’s going to go one way and then it doesn’t."
It isn’t just Oxford that lives in this elitist liberal bubble. Back there in the ancient days of 2013 former Bush 43 White House press secretary Dana Perino observed that here in America “Democrats and the liberals live in the biggest mainstream media bubble ever created in the history of the universe.”
Exactly.
Take a look at this August, 2015 story in Politico. Here’s the headline:
Insiders: Trump can't win early states
The story reads in part this way:
“Six in 10 Republican insiders in the early states say Donald Trump can’t win Iowa or New Hampshire.
That’s the assessment of this week’s POLITICO Caucus, our weekly bipartisan survey of the top operatives, strategists and activists in Iowa and New Hampshire. Their conclusion comes on the heels of the latest national poll, from CNN/ORC, that reports the controversial real estate mogul is leading the GOP presidential field even after crudely attacking Fox News host Megyn Kelly last week following the first GOP debate, which she co-moderated.
...
‘Telling a pollster you support Trump is whiskey courage. Most of them will sober up enough to realize they aren’t going to walk into a ballot booth and vote for a misogynist jerk,’ agreed a New Hampshire Republican, who like all participants was granted anonymity in order to speak freely.
At the end of this story there is list of all the GOP “Insiders” consulted for the story. Let the record show that Trump came in a close second in Iowa and won going away in New Hampshire, successive victories now making him the GOP nominee presumptive.
The Politico story is a classic - priceless as an example of just how insular is the world of American political “insiders.” Among other things this Politico story illustrates in vivid fashion that there is not much of a difference between American political “insiders”, the American “mainstream” and “liberal” media and Oxford University students when it comes to assessing political reality and being in touch with the real world. And by no means was this story a stand-alone.
Here’s the New York Times house “conservative” David Brooks in December of 2015 as the GOP primaries began to loom. Headline on what he saw as the inevitable results of these upcoming primaries?
No, Donald Trump Won’t Win
After comparing Trump to a beautiful but vividly pink rug that attracts but is, on reflection, un-buyable, Brooks loftily concluded:
“When campaigns enter that final month, voters tend to gravitate toward the person who seems most orderly. As the primary season advances, voters’ tolerance for risk declines. They focus on the potential downsides of each contender and wonder, Could this person make things even worse?
“When this mental shift happens, I suspect Trump will slide. All the traits that seem charming will suddenly seem risky. The voters’ hopes for transformation will give way to a fear of chaos. When the polls shift from registered voters to likely voters, cautious party loyalists will make up a greater share of those counted.
Thus, after a thorough consultation with his buds at the New York Times, doubtless a few political “insiders” of the type quoted in that Politico article and, perhaps for good measure, his friends at PBS and the Chevy Chase Country club, a New York Times “conservative” columnist pronounces No, Donald Trump Won’t Win.
Nothing out of touch there. Now, as reported here at NewsBusters, comes finally NBC’s Chuck Todd to cautiously observe in the wake of Brexit that what happened in Britain “is a reminder why we, in whatever you want to call us, the political or media elite, need to not underestimate Donald Trump.”
It is noteworthy that in the wake of Trump’s statement after the San Bernardino shooting about putting a temporary ban on entry into the US by Muslims until we “figure out what is going on” with the mess that is the US legal immigration system, British Prime Minister David Cameron took to Parliament to declaim that Trump’s “remarks are divisive, stupid and wrong…If he came to visit our country I think he would unite us all against him.”
By sheer accident of scheduling, Donald Trump landed in Scotland for a trip to his Turnberry golf course after Britain’s voters had rendered their verdict on Cameron’s support for Brexit. Cameron was announcing his resignation - and Trump was another day closer to his nomination for president.
David Cameron - like those Oxford students, American political and media “insiders” and Times columnist Brooks - had spent too much time in the elitist bubble. Margaret Thatcher he isn’t. One suspects Trump had to bite his tongue to keep from asking the obvious question of Cameron - and by extension - others who predicted both his demise and that of the Brexit movement.
The obvious question: Who’s stupid now?
