For many, many people, social mobility under Obama was the same as it was under Bush II and Clinton. That's to say it was very slow, stagnant, or even possibly a backwards slide. When you had a Presidential candidate that offered a lot of "Hope and Change" and then because the world is what it is and that never transpired, and things actually got worse for many people, all of the sudden the false promises from either candidate is really what catches your ear. It's what you've been hurting for for years and years and years. Not just social mobility, but really, a strong sense of stability. I remember all three presidential debates, I made threads for all of them here on Hubski. I remember being very distrusting of both Trump and Clinton for various reasons. I remember Trump actually talking about bringing jobs back, with conviction, and thinking to myself if that was Bush or McCain or Romney up there, they would have gotten my vote. Must have been one hell of a dog whistle he used, because I have a deeply engrained love/hate relationship with corporate America and even I, if only for a brief moment, liked Trump. Also, Loretta Lynn is an angel.
Behold the Long Boom. It's more accurate to say that social mobility was the same under Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter and Ford. It's just that when that mobility is slightly negative, it may take a while before you are really and truly in the shit. But when your myths are built in the '50s, and when your breadwinners are still riding that pensioned gravy train, things don't start looking shitty until Grampaw is in his grave. By 1969 we'd been to the moon, had a Mach 2 passenger jet and were enjoying an eight year decline in the unemployment rate. By 1974 we'd impeached a president, effectively abandoned the moon, gave up on our own SST and started enjoying an oil embargo. Thing is, you have to have been paying attention for longer than many voters have been alive for context on this shit. I mean, FFS. My hometown company town was in the megadeath industry. SDI? that was our bread'n'butter. And in the amount of time it took for me to get from preschool to high school, we'd closed three of seven elementary schools and one of the two Jr. Highs. The march of history does not favor small towns and as agriculture and manufacturing become information and service, the people without a bridge are left on a sinking shore. The problem is that on a historical spectrum, the Clintons are Republicans. They aren't even moderate Republicans. Take away Barry Goldwater's staunch disinterest in black people, and he's effectively Bill Clinton. Sanders? Sanders is a bomb-throwing crazy-eyed socialist that happens to be slightly to the right of Kennedy.