Bad Policies.

"I could have concluded what most commentators concluded. They had predicted Trump could not win- that he could never win - because he is a fool and a bigot. Therefore, they surmise, the voters must be fools and bigots as well. 

For many liberals, wedded to the belief that those who disagree with them are fools and bigots by definition, that answer may be good enough. For us conservatives, who fancy ourselves students of human nature and Human Experience, it should not. The ones with the foolish and preconceived notions were those who got it so wrong. It is a time to reexamine our assumptions. 

So here is my re-examination in a nutshell. A large proportion of Americans, including many American conservatives, voted for Trump because they are really not doing very well. They are not doing well in the world that we conservatives created after the Cold War. And they are not doing well, in part, because of some of the policies we conservatives have advocated. 

In short, the world of globalization is not working for many of our own people. We can pretend that this is a false perception, but it is not. We now have a choice. We can keep trying to convince people that they missunderstand their own lives, or we can try to understand what they are saying. Then we can decide what to do about it."

- Stephen Harper. Right Here, Right Now