Does the popularity of Trump and Sanders demonstrate the US has a shrinking middle class?

From an outsider looking in,YUP!

The countries with thriving middle classes and without the inequality of the US are socialist.

@jaykay Didn’t America used to have a strong, thriving, middle class? Or, do you feel we never did?

@JLeslie We had a strong thriving middle class when unions were strong, taxes were higher on the wealthy, and CEOs were not making 200 times the income of their average workers.

@jaytkay Right, and we weren’t socialists during that time were we?

Interesting observation. They definitely personify the split. But Trump and Bernie support spread along all of the classes. Oddly enough…

[I edited]

Yes, but shrinking is a more clumsy way of defining it. The stresses are more insidious. The popularity of both men is the result of pronounced dissatisfaction with the status quo. But It is a mistake to regard Trump as the champion of of those currently manipulating the levers of power to the detriment of the non rich. Regardless of his bluster, he is actually an unknown quality in regard to his course of action if elected. Sanders on the other hand has been preaching on the flaws of our system for some 40 years, and his proposed agenda is about as clear as it can be. But you’re right. The ongoing destruction of the middle class is the EXACT reason both men are being taken seriously. The question remains which of the 2 of them has the rational explanation for “what ails us”?

Trump and Sanders are indicators. The middle class are no longer content to pick one of the chosen few. The want a candidate that represents them.

For years the middle class has acted like a buffer between the Uber rich and the poor but as more of them fall into the lower category and a few rise into the higher category there is a smaller and smaller number to provide the necessary funds to keep the poor at bay. We all witness now to how the police are becoming more and more militarized and their job is evolving into more of a means of suppressing the anger of the poor. Eventually they will fail and the shit will hit the fan, the poor will arise and despite the best efforts of our glorious police state they will destroy the elite, plunging the entire nation into chaos.
Such is life…............

Not directly.

There it a far closer correlation between their support and the widespread disillusionment with “business as usual” politics. While Sanders has a a few decades in DC and a bit more time as Mayor of Burlington, he walks his own path; while he often votes with Democrats, he will (and does) oppose them often when his views do not align with the DNC’s. You can see how that’s working out by the shameful conduct of the DNC in recent months. And Trump… well, he’s definitely not your normal politician.

That said, there is a loose correlation between their popularity and the shrinking middle class. Sanders is all about fair wages for workers, breaking up big banks, and generally working for the working class. Trump is popular amongst those who feel that they would be millionaires if not for big guv’mint taking their hard-earned money (in the form of taxes) and giving those tax dollars and giving them to “parasites” and illegal immigrants.

But that relationship is closer to coincidence than causation. Their popularity is due to frustration with what we’ve had for the last few decades.

That said, the chasm between the 2 candidates could not be more pronounced in the explanation of our plight as well as the remedies proposed.

And here it is critical to note that Trump has a huge and quite possibly overwhelming advantage. For Trump’s spin on things amounts to “our leaders are dumb, and the remedy is me.” It’s THE message tailored by heaven for the low information voter, and reaps the predictable results. In fact, to me the positive aspect to Trump’s candidacy is the revelation as to just how pervasive this segment of our population has become. But then again, it might simply be the case that frustrated conservatives have nowhere else to go. But either way, Sanders has a tough hill to climb, for his is an intellectual argument requiring excursions in abstract thought. It’s a message pitched by a frumpy little man of no particular eloquence, promoting an agenda stamped and drummed into us as demonic for better than 100 years. The odds would appear fearful for such a man with such a message. But even more than Trump, the one stellar and unassailable aspect of Bernie is his straight up authenticity. Both Trump and Sanders are regarded (but no longer dismissed) by their competition as oddball kooks. My hope is that Sanders’ take might fall on ears within the Trump camp still capable of following an argument.

That word Obama used a lot, oh yeah…change, that really grabbed voters attention.
Trouble was, he didn’t particularly deliver it, but the notion stuck & Trump has ran with it like a bat outta hell.

If I listened to and let the liberal media form my opinions on Trump being a pawn of the rich I would agree with you but I would never take the lazy way out and let that happen. I ask what do you see at these Trump rallys? Do you see rich businessmen in suits? I don’t. I see the same passionate everday persons I see at the Sanders rallies. Neither Trump nor Sanders are taking donations from these big bad boogeymen Corporations that the left is saying are so bad even though these same big bad boogeymen Corporations are what helped elect and re-elect Obama and are filling the campaign coffers of Hillary, Rubio and Cruz. The very fact that Trump is leading the race and doing so without the help of big corporate donors is driving the boogeymen Corporations bat shit crazy and they are working in overdrive trying to figure out a way to stop him and IMO the harder they try that will only make Trump more popular and stronger than he already is.

@Cruiser I really do see your point. Something to think about though is when I lived in TN I knew a lot of people who had lower middle class incomes who really believed things like having a higher sales tax, rather than income tax, taxes the rich more because the rich spend more. These people protected the rich without even knowing what they really were agreeing to. They also hated the idea of the poor on welfare, because they themselves worked very very hard to feed their families and provide a nice life, and so even though they didn’t make much money they identified with the rich in the sense that if there are only two groups (people who work to pay their bills and people who don’t) they were on the working side.

I wouldn’t say we have a thriving middle class but I think people overlook something. We spend more than we make. People use to take savings seriously. You had one car not 3 or 4. We had homes that matched the size of our family. Now we need homes with 5 to 6 bedrooms for a family of 4, a play room, a guest room, tv’s in every room, leather chairs, Large swimming pools,and a screen room in the most expensive neighborhoods.
Kids have to be signed up for all types of activities and go to private schools. And let us not forget about the expensive plastic surgery. So today’s middle class is tied up in severe debt. They want to live like millionaires and the poor want to live like the middle class of the 1980’s.

People today don’t know the real value of the dollar bill. Why? Because credit cards make things come true in a moments notice. When I was little, my parents saved before buying anything. We were poor, but we had clothes and food and shelter. We had one tv for the whole family. No cable, no internet, and only one phone, one bathroom for 7 people. We managed and my parents were able to squirrel away a little bit of money weekly for emergencies. They also had a Christmas savings account so they never had to borrow money for the holidays. My mom never had a credit card till she had to get one to get to purchase a plane ticket online because she couldn’t send physical cash online and the credit card purchase needed to be in her name for her to pick up the ticket at the airport. It’s nearly impossible to simply live off cash any longer.
If the middle class actually started saving more and using credit less and didn’t thrive to live above their means, then you would notice a thriving middle class. Right now the middle class and the poor are in extreme debt. Though not all their fault. Banks have a roll in the way this all played out. They gave loans to people they knew would be put in a financial bind and have let interest rates sky rocket to make more money and at the same time make it difficult for people to actual pay them back so they can steal homes and try to sell them again. And when that failed. Well, then have the taxpayer bail them out.