Having family on the "other side" of that divide: their lives are measurably better now than 25 years ago. Pay generally better, education is better, knowledge

Having family on the "other side" of that divide: their lives are measurably better now than 25 years ago. Pay generally better, education is better, knowledge more common, health care better. Most things cost less. Not everything is better, and incremental fixes to policies need to take place. Probably the biggest extant bug is the cost of health insurance and its rising. Things get much worse if you're in a rural area and not willing to relocate to better your life when the local money engine dies. That Americans aren't moving as much is a known fact; that American's aren't is likely a key contributor to certain economic 'dead sea' effects IMO. Generally, you have to look past the panic and doom of the 24/7 cable news cycle to see the bettering of the US though. It takes a bit of a long view. The key thing - and this is what Obama is trying to go for though - is that we can't pull up the ladder behind us. Regarding the current election. * The cable news networks are mostly a dumpster fire: Fox and CNN more than others. Written journalism has been adequate to excellent in general. * Mr. Thiel has been known for some time to be more of a neo-reactionary type. That he supports Trump is not surprising. * That the Republicans turn out to support the Party candidate is not surprising. It's a known characteristic of the Republicans. * That the song and dance of a mythical 50s appeals to so many white people should also not be surprising. We've spent 40 years mythologizing it. Also, 'Make America Great' Again largely is a dogwhistle to "Make America run by White Men Again", with a helping of good old traditional isolationism to boot. It's almost a no-op slogan, everyone can read into it what they want, based upon their current grievance - so long as they are aggrieved. One more note. I've worked good jobs, and I've worked minimum wage jobs, and I've been broke, and I've been not-broke. My overall estimate is that in order to assure prosperity and a better life to the blue collar workers, unions have to be re-energized across the board, taxes on corporations have to go up, and marginal taxes rates on the very wealthy have to go up. Better government services from the taxes, and better pay from the unions. This will lead to a better quality of life. That's a straight liberal playbook. We can look back on the 50s, 60s and the 90s liberal playbooks and iterate on them. There are things to improve, but they got some stuff right.