American Politics the 2016 edition

We are moving towards populism, rather than left or right.  Right is naturally a little more, ahem, attractive because of the deadly cocktail of populism and nationalism but it all started with the left populists in Greece.  So it's more about who's willing to speak up for the people and offer support for what they want (however outrageous the proposal may be).  This necessarily also means abandoning the middle in politics.  And as much as one may lament the consequences of that, it must be recognised as a symptom and not the malady itself.  As Steve (lazland) has summed up before, people have grown weary of the elite, whether it's D.C, London or Delhi's Lutyens zone.  We even have a term called Lutyens journalists, meaning journalists who are only concerned with Delhi political intrigue and clueless about the nation.  Now, the previous center-left dispensation would have never undertaken a disastrous move like demonetisation but they also reached a point where they were doing nothing, pretty much.  They had a very competent team including people who had studied in elite universities abroad but their collective output failed to inspire.  And because they were mostly all technocrats, they were too keen to compromise and be loyal to their political masters rather than bring their intelligence and expertise to bear on govt policy.  It's a difficult situation with no clear solutions as of now.