The Data Behind America's Political Anger

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Michael Smerconish** (0:30)
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**SPEAKER_3** (1:04)
Ditch the clowns on the left and the jokers on the right and join Michael Smerconish right here in the middle.

**SPEAKER_4** (1:10)
This is The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:14)
If we had to pay for the analysis you're about to hear, we could never afford it. We couldn't afford it. We're just so fortunate that Doug Sosnik drops by from time to time when he issues one of his missives.
It's interesting. Sometimes he does it in writing, and it reminds me. Doug, I don't know if I ever told you this, but when you issue your written analysis, and this is the highest compliment, you remind me of Buffett and Charlie Munger, those Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger annual reports that look like they were banged out on an IBM Selectrix, and yet they're so insightful.
And occasionally, Doug Sosnik releases slide decks. He's just issued about 50 slides. So for the benefit of those who will watch on YouTube, you'll be able to see the slides as well. Doug was senior advisor to President Clinton from 1994 to the year 2000 He's advised more than 50 governors and US senators. Thank you for coming back, Doug, I appreciate it.

**Doug Sosnik** (2:11)
Michael, thank you for having me.

**Michael Smerconish** (2:13)
I'm gonna lump together three slides. They all have to do with wealth, wealth inequality and spending by the wealthiest. The first of them is, and then I'll ask you to frame the take away from all three. The first is this, the share of wealth held by the top 0.1% is at a record high.
Then I go to a second slide, the US economy increasingly depends on consumption by the rich. And finally, a third slide, retailers are increasingly focused on high income consumers. Put that all together and tell me the political significance.

**Doug Sosnik** (2:56)
Well, the political significance is we've really become two Americas. And oddly, in many ways, what has fueled the rise of Trump and it's fueled the rise of Mondami and populist Democrats on the left is the same thing, which is a feeling by an increasingly large number of people in America, that we have a system that's stacked for the people who are rich and powerful, and that the system is broken. And so obviously, on the one side, the Trump voters can be to the right and Mondami type to the left. In many ways, on economic issues, they're in agreement that the system is not working. And so to be successful, I think going forward in American politics, you cannot be defending the status quo.
Those slides, there are many more that reinforce them. It's indefensible in our current system, how disproportionately a small number of people are benefiting. And so that's what's the animating force in American politics right now, is that we have, as you're probably familiar with, a K-shaped economy, where if you have money, life's never been better. And if you don't have money, the bottom arm of the K, life's never been more challenging. And the last slide you showed, and I'm sure your listeners can think about that in their daily lives, the last slide, I just used it on automobiles. And the slide showed on the left, those are cheaper cars.
And the ones on the right are more expensive cars. And you can see on the left part of each of those, in the case of the cheaper cars, that they've decreased the number of cars they've manufactured in the last 10 years on cheaper cars. And on the right, they've increased the number of expensive cars. And they asked Willie Sutton, a bank robber, why he robbed banks. He says, well, that's where the money is.