For many, thinking out of the box resonates. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders each in their own way have captured a very large share of voters with one simple idea: They are thinking out of the box. But first, according to them, you have to understand why the old way doesn't work: The establishment is incompetent, corrupt, and is failing a large majority of the American people.
There is a new homologous reality equally filled with the anger and dissatisfaction that Trump and Sanders are selling, and there are plenty of takers. It was just seven and a half years ago when President Obama took office that the unemployment number was hovering at 10 percent; today it is at 5 percent. The threat of ISIS (an issue that has been viewed as a national security threat by Republicans) has not only been acted upon by the Obama administration but has seen progress. Air strikes have done substantial damage to ISIS's infrastructure and hierarchy. But in the year of the outsiders, their message has carved a political space where this sort of progress is pushed into a vacuum almost as if it never happened.
When Trump declares he will make "America Great Again," his tone and demeanor take his audience back to a different time, an America in the late 19th century where those left out of American industrialism held revival meetings. Except rather than the curing of an individual who is ill, Trump speaks about a debilitated America. "We don't win anymore," he bellows, and "When I am elected, we will win again!" Trump presents the world to his followers in black and white, both in terms of racial preference and winners and losers. And his strong intimation is that the people who are our leaders today (starting with the current president, who, according to Trump, is not even one of us) hold us back from not one or two but a string of victories, including defeating ISIS and winning trade wars with countries like China and Mexico.