Met up with some friends who were Democrats. When the conversation turned to politics, the ‘can you believes’ started flowing. “Can you believe what is coming out about Trump’s kids and Russia?”  “Can you believe Sean Spicer just resigned?”

The ‘can you believes’ are almost always followed by the ‘how cans’ and this was no exception. “How can anyone believe/support/vote for/trust Trump?”

Unfortunately for the Democrats, while this is exactly the right question, they just cannot figure out the answer. They feel that Trump supporters must be uneducated/hoodwinked/bigots or worse.

What they cannot figure out is that there are legitimate reasons for supporting Donald Trump. They are actually very similar to the reasons for supporting Bernie Sanders. A lot of Americans feels like they are getting a raw deal and the deck is stacked against them.

They are right.

Income inequality keeps rising in the US, and it seems like the techies, Wall Street and corporate America are taking over.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were the only candidates really calling this out during the last election campaign. That message still resonates with at least 30% of the country, probably more. And they believe Trump can fix it because he has too much money to care about getting rich anymore (very not true) and he is not afraid to throw verbal bombs in normally reserved Washington to shake things up (very true).

They realize Trump has flaws, but they still see him as the only chance of changing the status quo. Until the Democrats have a message and leaders that resonate with the part of the country being left behind, Trump will remain the only game in town.