This article really provided me a lot of insights on how the Democrats lost a keystone of their heritage (suspicion of banks, finance, and monopolies). and empowered the financial distress that drove a lot of the misery of the disenfranchised into Trumpism. I thought it was a great insight that the young Democrats that swept in after the Vietnam and Nixon turmoil didn't experience that madness of 1920s stock market excesses and the great depression that followed. They embraced big banks as a tool to push forward their civil liberties agendas. They lost part of the heritage of the Democratic party which held up a check against those forces. They abandoned populism of the people and became the party of urban counter-cultural elites who thought they knew better than their rural brethren because they were enlightened about liberal ideals. They abandoned the Unions that used to be part of their base, empowered monopolies, and created the corporate beasts that destroyed the tradesmen and mom & pops of rural America.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...t-soul/504710/
It's a good lesson for myself to stop thinking of myself as some kind of enlightened, progressive latte-sipping genius and realize that I don't know anymore and am not better than the yop-gobblers and ovaltine chuggers of the world.