Donald Trump Doesn't Believe In Much, Doesn't

But The Thought Leaders On Talk Radio And Fox Do More Than Shape Opinion. Backed By Their Own Wing Of The Book-publishing Industry And Supported By Think Tanks That Increasingly Function As Public-relations Agencies, Conservatives Have Built A Whole Alternative Knowledge System, With Its Own Facts, Its Own History, Its Own Laws Of Economics.

If We Say Something Often Enough, We Come To Believe It. We Don't Usually Delude Others Until After We Have First Deluded Ourselves.

Venezuela Has Gone From Being A Democratic Country 15 Years Ago To Being Totally Not A Democracy Today. Usually That De-democratization Doesn't Take The Form Of A Heavy Handed Police State.

One Of The Great Drivers Of The Alienation That Has Made Donald Trump Possible Is That The Growth In The American Economy Has Been Weak. In The Decade From 2005 To 2015, There Was Not One Year When The Us Hit Three Per Cent Growth. And To The Extent There's Been Growth, Virtually All Of It Has Been Collected By The Top 10 Per Cent Of The Population. Obviously, If We Knew How To Make Growth Faster, We Would. We Don't. And It's Very Difficult To Make Growth More Broadly Shared. Because It's Not Just The Us That Has This Problem.

One Of The Questions I Often Get Asked Is, "were You Surprised That Trump Won?" I Always Answer The Same Way: "i Was Surprised, I Am Surprised And I Will Never Stop Being Surprised."