I am struck this morning, while reading Naomi Klein’s account of various uprisings in different countries being saddled with austerity/shock treatments, that our country may well have brought on the Trump phenomenon by basically missing the opportunity to self-correct ,or heed the voices crying out during the Occupy movement of 2011-2012. Five years down the road, when the camps are what seem like a distant memory, and the Obama administration doing basically nothing to advocate for addressing the still-growing income inequalities, we may be reaping the social and political consequences of not responding.

One could also say the same about the financial crisis. Obama actually had an even better opportunity then, when the banks were reeling and ready to receive much tougher medicine, only to be greeted with “We have your backs” from the Obama administration. Three years later, the Occupy movement arrived, immediately following the global uprising dubbed “The Arab Spring”., which was a Progressive/Revolutionary backlash that followed a largely non-violent path.
But, even then, the Obama administration stood by as cities and states quashed the camps. Now, the government of the United States has been taken over by a growth of movements that began with the “Tea Party”, radicalized the GOP into a repressive, regressive regime, and culminated in a racist, bigoted, misogynist, ecologically destructive, reactionary ideology that sees Trump as a leader. Reap what you sow.