By nearly all accounts, the 2016 American election process has been a "black swan event" in that it hasn’t included a lot of the patterns typically displayed in the process of picking an American President.
Baffling the pundits and oddsmakers, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both defied the leaders of their newly adopted political parties. They’ve both assembled a following around the shared idea of protectionism. Donald Trump makes it a point to say that we’re going to build a wall to keep Mexicans on their side of the border and then follows up saying that we’re going to beat China at the trade game. For his part, Bernie Sanders picks a slightly different target. Bernie instead chooses to draw the lines of protectionism a bit closer to home, as he drops accusations of greed and blames our neighbors and friends who happen to be CEOs and executives for the plight of the middle class and working poor.
The frustration that Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders are both channeling seems to be rooted in some degree of economic hardship. What if the future of that hardship doesn’t originate in Mexico, China, or even in corporate board rooms? What if at least some of the frustration is due to jobs being automated on our own soil by technology implemented by companies simply attempting to stay competitive in the marketplace?
Could it be that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are each giving different names to the same boogieman: Computer Software?
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