How the Establishment Created Trump - And Still Doesn't Get It

They're still asking the wrong fucking question.

Every pundit, every professor, every blue-checkmark intellectual scratching their heads: "How did this happen? How did Donald Trump become president, twice?"

They write books about it. Hold conferences. Commission studies. Blame Russia. Blame Facebook. Blame "misinformation." Blame racism. Blame stupidity.

Anything to avoid the mirror.

Because the answer is simple. The answer is brutal. And the answer indicts every single one of them.

They created him.

The same establishment that clutches pearls over Trump's vulgarity spent 40 years vulgarizing the American Dream. The same elites who call his supporters "deplorables" deployed policies that destroyed their towns, their jobs, their futures.

Trump didn't emerge from a vacuum. He emerged from the wreckage they created.

The Hollowing Out

Let's talk about what happened to America while the establishment was in charge.

Wages: Flatlined for 50 Years

In 1970, a single income could support a family of four, buy a house, a car, and put kids through college.

In 2025, two incomes can barely cover rent.

Real wages for American workers have been essentially flat since the 1970s. Fifty fucking years. Half a century of "economic growth" that went everywhere except workers' pockets.

Where did it go?

• CEO pay rose 1,460% since 1978
• Corporate profits hit record highs
• The stock market soared , enriching the 10% who own 89% of stocks
• Billionaires added trillions during a pandemic while workers got a $1,200 check

The establishment told workers to "learn to code" while they learned to starve.

Manufacturing: Shipped Overseas

Between 2000 and 2020, America lost 5 million manufacturing jobs.

Entire communities, cities that built cars, made steel, manufactured the machines that won World War II, hollowed out. Ghost towns with opioid epidemics where factories used to stand.

Who did this?

Not Trump.

NAFTA, signed by Bill Clinton.

China's entry into the WTO, championed by the establishment of both parties.

"Free trade" deals written by corporate lawyers that freed corporations to chase the cheapest labor on Earth while American workers competed with people making $2 an hour.

The elites called it "globalization." The people who lost everything called it betrayal.

Healthcare: Legalized Extortion

In any other developed country, getting sick doesn't mean going bankrupt.

In America, 66.5% of bankruptcies are tied to medical issues. Two-thirds. In the richest country in human history.

Insulin that costs $5 to make sells for $300. Cancer patients ration chemotherapy. People die because they can't afford to live.

And what did the establishment do?

Obama gave us a healthcare plan written by insurance companies. A mandate to buy private insurance or face a penalty. Billions in guaranteed customers for the same corporations bleeding people dry.

Biden promised a public option. Never delivered.

The pharmaceutical lobby spent $373 million on lobbying in 2022 alone. They own Congress. Both parties. Every committee that matters.

And they wonder why people are angry.

Housing: Priced Out Forever

A house that cost $150,000 in 2000 now costs $400,000.

A median home now costs 7.7 times the median household income , the highest ratio in American history. Higher than before the 2008 crash.

An entire generation will never own a home. They'll rent forever, building equity for landlords and private equity firms that bought up neighborhoods while the Fed printed trillions.

Speaking of which.

2008: The Moment They Showed Their Hand

Remember 2008?

Banks gambled with mortgage-backed securities they knew were garbage. They packaged dogshit loans, slapped triple-A ratings on them, sold them worldwide, and when the bomb went off , they got bailed out.

$700 billion in TARP. Trillions in Fed support. Zero executives in prison. Not one.

Meanwhile, 10 million Americans lost their homes. Families sleeping in cars. Tent cities. Suicides.

The banks got bonuses.

The people got foreclosure notices.

And then the establishment had the audacity, the sheer fucking gall, to lecture those same people about "fiscal responsibility" while demanding austerity.

That's when the contract broke. That's when millions of Americans realized the game was rigged. The rules only apply to them. The elites play by different rules, or no rules at all.

The Lies They Told

It's not just what they did. It's what they said while doing it.

"We're the adults in the room."

The same "adults" who:

• Started a 20-year war in Afghanistan and lost
• Invaded Iraq on fabricated evidence, 500,000 dead, $2 trillion wasted
• Turned Libya into a failed state with open slave markets
• Armed Syrian rebels who became ISIS
• Spent $8 trillion on War on Terror and made terrorism worse

The "adults" delivered nothing but body bags and debt.

"The economy is strong."

Independent investigations. Imperial expansion exposed. Pattern documented.
Get investigations delivered.

Strong for who?

They measure GDP while people can't afford groceries. They celebrate the stock market while 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They tout unemployment numbers while gig workers piece together three jobs without benefits.

Their metrics mean nothing to someone choosing between rent and medication.

"Trust the experts."

The same experts who:

• Said Iraq had WMDs
• Said the banks were fine in 2007
• Said inflation was "transitory"
• Said outsourcing would raise all boats
• Said every trade deal would benefit workers

The "experts" were either lying or incompetent. Either way, why should anyone trust them?

"Decency" and "norms."

They want decency? They drone-striked weddings. They caged kids at the border (Obama built the cages, look it up). They bailed out billionaires while lecturing workers about "personal responsibility."

Their "norms" protected them and fucked everyone else.

Then Comes Trump

Into this shitshow walks a guy who says what no politician dares to say:

"They're all corrupt."

"The system is rigged."

"They think you're stupid."

"I'm rich, so I can't be bought."

Was it true? Partially. Was he the solution? Fuck no.

But he was the first politician in decades who didn't talk like a focus-grouped robot. Who didn't lecture working people about their "privilege" while cashing checks from Goldman Sachs.

He told auto workers: "I'll bring your jobs back."

He told rust belt towns: "I see you."

He told the forgotten: "You matter."

Were these lies? Mostly. Did he deliver? Barely.

But here's what the establishment still doesn't understand:

People didn't vote for Trump because they believed him. They voted for him because they stopped believing everyone else.

When both parties have lied to you for 40 years, when every promise is broken, every "hope and change" becomes more of the same, you vote for the guy who pisses off the people you hate.

Trump wasn't a candidate. He was a middle finger.

The Response: Everything Except Reflection

How did the establishment respond to Trump?

Did they ask why millions abandoned them?

Did they reconsider the trade deals that gutted communities?

Did they address the wage stagnation, the healthcare costs, the housing crisis?

No. They called his voters racist. Deplorable. Uneducated. Rubes.

Hillary Clinton , who took $675,000 from Goldman Sachs for three speeches , called half the country "deplorables."

The media, headquartered in Manhattan and DC, where median income is triple the national average, mocked the accents, the values, the faith of people they'd never met.

Academics wrote papers about "economic anxiety" as if it were a mental illness instead of a rational response to being fucked over.

They learned nothing.

Russia, Russia, Russia

Can't admit you lost because your candidate was a corporate shill with zero charisma?

Blame Russia.

Three years of investigations. Wall-to-wall coverage. Mueller report. Impeachment.

Did Russia buy some Facebook ads? Sure. Did Russian bots post divisive content? Probably.

Did that flip Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, states that voted Obama twice before voting Trump?

Give me a break.

Those states flipped because Democrats abandoned workers. Because NAFTA destroyed their towns. Because Obama promised hope and delivered drone strikes and bank bailouts.

But blaming Russia is easier than blaming yourself.

"Democracy is under threat!"

The same people who:

• Rigged primaries against Bernie Sanders (the DNC emails proved it)
• Maintained an electoral college that overrides popular votes
• Allowed unlimited corporate money in politics (Citizens United)
• Gerrymandered districts into meaninglessness
• Suppressed third-party candidates from debates

These people lecture about "democracy."

The system was never as democratic as they claimed. They just didn't like it when someone they didn't control won.

The Real Deplorables

You want to talk about deplorable?

Deplorable is voting for a war that killed half a million Iraqis and facing zero consequences.

Deplorable is taking millions from pharmaceutical companies while people die rationing insulin.

Deplorable is giving speeches to Wall Street for more money than most Americans make in a decade, then pretending to champion the working class.

Deplorable is printing $4 trillion during COVID, watching billionaire wealth double, and acting surprised when inflation crushes the poor.

Deplorable is every politician who promised change and delivered nothing but excuses.

The establishment isn't better than Trump. They're just polite about their corruption.

They'll bomb a country with proper grammar. Gut a community with a reassuring smile. Steal a future while wearing a flag pin.

Trump is vulgar and crude and obvious about his bullshit.

They're sophisticated about theirs.

That's the only difference.

Where We Are Now

Trump is president again. The establishment is in shock, again.

And they're asking the same stupid question: "How did this happen?"

Here's how:

• Housing costs: Up 30% since 2020
• Grocery prices: Up 25% since 2020
• Real wages: Still stagnant
• Healthcare costs: Still bankrupting families
• Student debt: $1.7 trillion
• National debt: $34 trillion
• Infrastructure: Still crumbling
• Opioid deaths: Still climbing
• Life expectancy: Declining in America while rising everywhere else

The system is failing. Visibly, measurably, undeniably failing.

And when the system fails, people look for someone, anyone, who promises to blow it up.

Trump promises to blow it up.

Does he mean it? Who knows. Will he succeed? Probably not.

But when the alternative is more managed decline, more polished politicians delivering more empty promises, more of the same bullshit that brought us here.

People roll the dice.

The Question They Won't Ask

The real question isn't "how did Trump win?"

The real question is: What have you offered instead?

More trade deals that benefit corporations?

More wars that benefit defense contractors?

More healthcare "reform" that benefits insurers?

More bailouts that benefit banks?

More lectures from people who've never worried about a bill in their lives?

Trump is a symptom. A fever. The body politic rejecting an infection.

You don't cure a fever by denouncing it. You cure it by treating the disease.

The disease is a system that works for the few at the expense of the many.

Until that changes, there will always be another Trump. Another outsider. Another populist promising to tear it all down.

Because when the house is rotting, people stop listening to those who tell them the foundation is fine.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Here's what no one wants to say:

Trump voters aren't stupid.

They're not brainwashed. They're not deplorable. They're not a cult.

They're people who were lied to for decades. Whose jobs disappeared. Whose towns collapsed. Whose children face worse futures than they had.

They watched the rich get richer through every crisis. Watched politicians make promises and break them. Watched "experts" be wrong about everything and face no accountability.

And when a guy came along and said "the whole system is corrupt”, they agreed.

Because they're right.

The system is corrupt.

Trump isn't the answer. He's part of the same machine, a billionaire who golfs with the elites he claims to oppose.

But at least he admitted the machine exists.

That's more than the establishment ever did.

The Bottom Line

They created the conditions. They ignored the warnings. They enriched themselves while the country crumbled.

Then a con man told the truth about the con, and they're shocked people listened.

Trump isn't the problem.

Trump is what happens when the real problems go unsolved for 50 years.

You want to stop the next Trump? The one who might be smarter, smoother, actually competent?

Fix the fucking system.

Raise wages. Build houses. Make healthcare affordable. Stop the endless wars. Tax the billionaires. Break up the monopolies. End the legalized bribery called "lobbying."

Do something, anything, that shows people the system can work for them.

Or keep clutching pearls while the next populist rises.

Your choice.

The Kade Frequency doesn't pick sides. We expose the game.

Both parties. All elites. The whole rotten system.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Trump win the presidency?

Trump won because decades of establishment policies, wage stagnation, job outsourcing, healthcare costs, and bank bailouts, left millions of Americans feeling abandoned by both parties. He spoke to their anger when no one else would.

Did Russia help Trump win in 2016?

Russia engaged in social media influence operations, but the fundamental reasons for Trump's victory were domestic: economic abandonment of working-class voters, unpopular establishment candidates, and widespread distrust in institutions.

Are Trump voters racist?

Some are. Most aren't. Most are people whose economic prospects declined for decades while politicians made promises they never kept. Reducing Trump's support to racism ignores the systemic failures that created his movement.

Is Trump anti-establishment?

Trump speaks anti-establishment rhetoric but is himself a billionaire with deep ties to the elite class. He identified real problems in the system but his solutions largely benefit the wealthy. He's a symptom of broken trust, not a cure for it.

What would stop another Trump from rising?

Addressing the root causes: living wages, affordable housing and healthcare, ending corporate capture of politics, and creating an economy that works for everyone, not just the donor class.

Did both parties create this situation?

Yes. Republicans championed deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy. Democrats embraced free trade deals, bank bailouts, and abandoned labor. Both parties serve donors over voters. Both created the conditions for populist backlash.

No ads. No sponsors. Just signals from the noise.
Keep The Kade Frequency transmitting.

Sources:

• Pew Research Center , "For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged for decades"
• Economic Policy Institute , "CEO Pay in 2021"
• Economic Policy Institute , "The China Toll Deepens"
• CNBC , Medical Bankruptcy Statistics
• OpenSecrets , Pharmaceutical Lobbying
• Longterm Trends , Home Price to Income Ratio
• U.S. Treasury , TARP Programs
• Federal Reserve Economic Data , Corporate Profits
• The Guardian , DNC Email Leak
• CNN , Clinton Goldman Sachs Speeches

© 2026 The Kade Frequency. All rights reserved.