In May last year I suggested that the election was at its heart a referendum on neoclassical economics and in particular the supply siders and free trade globalization enthusiasts of the Chicago school. Eighteen months on and it is clear while the supply siders and free trade globalization enthusiasts may have sown the seeds of the current disaffection with broken promises of greater wealth, they are not being blamed. Instead, anger has been redirected at immigrants and minorities. To make matters worse the GOP in its tax bill is sticking dogmatically to its trickle-down mantra, despite evidence that it doesn't work and the indications that corporations have little intention of diverting any of the money saved from lower taxes towards investment or salaries and wages. After all that's up to the market.
There is a lesson here. Politicians (and prognosticators) can promise all they want; except in highly unusual cases, they can claim that historic parallels are not appropriate and that circumstances changed in ways that could not have been foreseen. Ultimately,they will never be held to account.
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