The people are hurting but the establishment isn't listening, and so conspiracy theorists, cranks, racist nationalists lite, and brash jerks are seen as ways to lash out against a system that doesn't appear to be helping them.

There are a holistic set of overlapping problems:

- Failure of the mainstream left to empathize properly with both working people and small business owners while pushing back against unreasonable demands of the very rich

- Failure to mentor young leaders in 4 domains: academia, industry, political parties, and community orgs

There are no quick or easy solutions, but require sustained, organized, and collaborative efforts to nudge the needle over years. This is quite difficult when a large fraction of the demographic voting for absurd leaders either don't have free time to volunteer, are unable to prioritize civic participation for whatever reason(s), or don't see the value in it.