The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders points to a disconnect between party establishments and ordinary voters, Joshua Riddiford writes.
Anyone watching this year's US presidential election campaign must concede it has been far from normal. Donald Trump has risen from nowhere and, with Ted Cruz and John Kasich dropping out of the race last week, now looks all but set to claim the fewer than 200 delegates he needs to become the Republican presidential nominee before July's convention.
Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist whose political candle now appears to be burning out, has enjoyed considerable support.
There are certain similarities between the two worth touching on.
Both have laid the blame for American social and political problems on a disliked "other'' group. Mr Sanders rallied against the "billionaire class'' while Mr Trump has scapegoated foreigners in cynical fashion.
Despite a significant amount of media attention, Mr Sanders was not really seriously policy-minded. The cost of his policies were high. A Wall Street Journal report, in September, put the price tag of his proposals at $18 trillion over a decade.
Mr Sanders' credibility took a further hit when a group of left-leaning economists, led by former chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee, said of Mr Sanders' policy ideas: "The numbers don't remotely add up.''
Of course, making expensive promises doesn't seem to have hampered the electoral prospects of the likely Republican nominee. A report by the non-partisan tax policy centre, back in December, found Mr Trump's plan, which would cut taxes without reducing government spending, would cut federal revenues by at least $9.5 trillion over a decade.
Former first lady and likely Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton is seen by commentators as more mainstream but remains a polarising candidate. Both she and Mr Trump had unfavourability ratings of more than 50% in a CBS/New York Times poll in March.
The consistent support for Mr Trump, who has been opposed by prominent Republicans such as 2012 party nominee Mitt Romney, has exposed fissures between the Republican party base and the party's elites.
Developments within American society and the economy have been proposed as explanations for the rise of Mr Trump. Some argue a disaffected working class in the US feel their concerns are not addressed by a detached political establishment.
It has been argued this is because of a shift by the Democrats away from the interests of workers and towards a new "identity politics'' focusing on race, sex, environmental activism, immigrant and indigenous rights and gay rights.
Job losses through increased competition due to globalisation for low-skilled manual-labour workers are also cited as a potential factor. The problem is these theories don't fit the profile of Trump supporters who, as Nate Silver, of 538 website, observed last week, range across the income spectrum.
Nonetheless, the rise of Mr Sanders and Mr Trump does point to some, perhaps inchoate, disconnect between party establishments and ordinary voters.
Conservative policy intellectual and National Review writer Yuval Levin is firmly in the Republican camp opposing Mr Trump. Mr Levin has his own theories for the unlikely popularity of Mr Trump and Mr Sanders.
The author of a forthcoming book entitled The Fractured Republic, Mr Levin argued in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece last month the disconnect between party establishments and ordinary voters is because both parties hark back to a perceived golden age.
According to Mr Levin, for Democrats that era is the 1960s, when cultural liberalisation seemed to coexist with a highly regulated economy. Republicans yearn for a return to the Reagan era of the 1980s, when economic liberalisation was accompanied by a renewed emphasis on family values.
These are uncomfortable times for thoughtful movement conservatives, such as Mr Levin, because Mr Trump, who has said he will "build a wall'' (expensive and divisive) and "take care of everybody'' (expensive), doesn't cohere at all to a small government conservative philosophy.
Mr Levin wants to rebuild conservatism through decentralising politics using the power of civil society's "mediating institutions'' post-Donald Trump but it is unclear the party could reshape itself easily in the aftermath of "The Donald'' whether he becomes president or not.
Time magazine recently reported Bernie Sanders as saying he would help Hillary Clinton should he not win his party's nomination (as now looks likely) although he expects her to adopt central parts of his platform.
Mrs Clinton has rejected the more expensive components of Mr Sanders' plan, which she must do to appeal to the political centre.
Conventional wisdom would suggest she must appeal to centre ground to win the White House but this year conventional wisdom has taken a hammering.
There were reports last week Donald Trump was not ready to campaign against Mrs Clinton and a Real Clear Politics average of polls has Mrs Clinton beating Mr Trump by six percentage points.
But if this election campaign has served to do anything it is to confound professional forecasters.
Expect strange times ahead.
- Joshua Riddiford is a reporter for Allied Press community newspaper The Star, holds a master's degree in public policy and a bachelor of arts (honours) degree in political science and is a keen student of politics and international affairs.
