Mick Hartley

Stephen Stromberg in the WaPo – Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are authentically wrong:

Here is a stark reality for both Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders voters: Should your candidate win the presidency, he will disappoint you. Both candidates have whipped up voter passions by offering ideologically comforting — and strikingly similar — narratives promising political revolution. Both would fail to achieve such a momentous national transformation because popular opinion and the country’s system of checks and balances would get in the way….

So why are people swooning for them? According to entrance polling, Cruz racked up votes from Iowans who prioritized finding a candidate who “shares my values,” and Sanders got a lift from those looking for a candidate who “cares about people like me.” This is partially because both candidates are telling bits of their parties’ bases what they want to hear. But another reason is that they have the “credibility” that comes from spending years angering “establishment” politicians — that is, people who have been sullied by having to govern in the real world of constraints and tradeoffs. Years of screaming from the fringes, refusing to deviate from a simplistic message as others ran the country, have given both men a massive political asset in 2016 — “authenticity” — and that quality alone is attracting people, particularly those who suspect that elite corruption or conspiracy is responsible for the country’s problems.

Ring any bells over here?