Almost three weeks ago, I filed my unemployment insurance job hunt while I was staying in Tijuana. I did this because I wanted to make sure my account was posted the next day. It turns out when I posted in Tijuana, my IP address triggered an alarm on my account and my claim went under investigation. After a number of calls I found out that I won’t get paid until the issue is resolved, which might be another two weeks. Further, until the investigation is done I will not be paid. That means, for the last three weeks, I have gotten no unemployment money. I’m giving the short story but the main point is that I did one little thing wrong, at least in my mind it was little, and that mistake was pounced on and I was penalized for it. To correct it, and all the paperwork I needed to fill out was done in a day, can take up to a month to complete and while this is going on I’m not getting paid.

The law might claim you are innocent until proven guilty but there are many points in regular life where you are guilty until proven innocent. Just with what I have dealt with in unemployment there have been situations where you go through an obstacle course seemingly set up for people who are trying to break the law, when in fact many people aren’t trying to break the law. There was a recent television report I saw locally that talked about the drug test policy that was set up in our state to keep drug addicts from receiving welfare benefits. Many states have set up similar programs because they wanted to screen out the ‘rampant surge’ in drug addicts using welfare money to get drugs. The report looked at the study the state presented showing how well they had cleaned up the welfare rolls of drug abusers. They study had the conclusion I had seen in other states with similar program. Our state caught one person in three years that was on drugs and on welfare. Let me state this again. A person wanting to receive welfare has to prove they aren’t on drugs so to get the welfare, they have to go to a center and pee in a cup. That cup is analyzed for drugs. Of the thousands if not hundreds of thousands of tests they did over a three year period, only one person tested positive. If you figure a urine test might be $50 a pop, not to mention the time spent by technicians to test the urine, that is a lot of time and trouble to catch one person.

There are many other instances where the people on the margins are treated as criminals first. From ‘voter fraud’ to unlawful traffic stops people get hit a lot with events that cast them as criminal when they have done nothing wrong. On the opposite end, those same people who get caught up in the system see people who can seemingly flaunt the laws. Everyday there is something on the news about a politician getting into some sort of money or vote scheme and getting a slap on the wrist. Pro athletes hit their spouse or get a DUI and all they have to do is pay a fine. It’s not just that the law may be the same for all people but someone making millions of dollars can pay a $10000 fine and still keep the house and some sense of dignity with the world at large. A few years ago there was a local chef who was caught in a series of DUIs and drug charges. He was a television personality at the time. When he was convicted, he was dropped from his television show. That was a few years ago but that chef is back on the air and he has a new restaurant.

I would say a good majority of people hate it when people of status get redeemed, because they don’t see where regular people in similar situations get redemption. The truth is regular people don’t get redemption in the way celebrities and those with means do. When we got knocked down we aren’t getting up. The big problem with regular people is we aren’t in a lofty area to begin with. Think of it this way; if I’m an athlete making $10 million a year and I’m caught in a career ending scandal, I might have a lavish lifestyle but I can downgrade if I have to by selling the house and the cars, I may have to rent in a middle class area and when some time has passed I might get a job paying $1 million or maybe $500000 a year. Sure, it’s a knock down from the previous life, but I’m still doing a lot better than others. If I’m someone making $50000 or less and get hit up with a medical crisis that takes all my savings, there’s not a lot of cushion I have for survival. There is no safety net and I’m going to run into people in government agencies that aren’t going to be sympathetic to me because they have thousands of people in the same boat.

What has been curious to be during this election cycle, which honestly hasn’t really begun yet, is that reporters and pundits in the Beltway or celebrity bubble don’t understand the thinking of real Americans. They don’t live paycheck to paycheck or see the issues we have to face on a constant basis. I’ve been job hunting for months and most of the jobs I’ve seen that will hire you right away are call center jobs, fast food or retail sales. Most Americans consider those entry level/teenager jobs, but when I go for interviews on those jobs the people I see working on those jobs are people looking just like me. They are older Americans, they are people who have families and are trying to provide for them. They’re working hard and aren’t looking for a handout, but they don’t want to work like a dog for low wages. They are struggling and surviving; a modern day Good Times TV show.

I’m bringing up all this economic woe because the TV personalities and pundits won’t get why some Americans are looking at people like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump for President. The establishment is the establishment, saying the same words, offering the same broken promises and delivering nothing. Especially in this election cycle, when you look at the probable nominees from both parties it’s not just the same slogans but the same name brands. When the choices are Clinton and Bush, there isn’t a lot for a regular person to get excited about in the establishment front runners. Remember, you have a voting population that isn’t excited about politics to begin with, so offering up pre-packaged names makes for non-excitement.

Donald Trump has defied expectations of the political pundit class and at every step of the way they predict he’s going to fail. They though he wouldn’t get in the race, they thought his racist talk about immigration would do him in and when he went after John McCain, oh how sure of themselves were they that he was done for. His poll numbers kept going up. They express the reason why but I don’t think the pundits think it is true. All the things I wrote about are frustrations real people feel in America right now. We feel isolated. We feel like we don’t have a voice. We want to say things, do things to stick it to The Man but we don’t have the resources or the audience to make a difference. Trump isn’t the ideal person, in my mind, for any political position but I get why people gravitate towards him. He’s got the money, the prestige and the gall to say what people think in their hearts but won’t say publicly. Looking at comment sections of news media sites I could see where people hate Mexican immigrants. John McCain, even in Arizona, isn’t as revered at the press would like to believe. With such a crowded field of candidates, Trump doesn’t need a huge amount of people on his side to make an impact at this time. He’s a showman and as long as the press follow him, many will hear his message and will think of him as a real alternative to the establishment.

To a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders is riding the same disenfranchised wave. In the 2008 election, the early money was that Hillary Clinton would win the nomination. Like now, people were concerned she would get a coronation and not a real challenger. A look at the 2006 field at the time, only Biden and John Edwards looked like serious challengers. To be blunt, Obama was the token at the time. The resume was impressive but small and the only real narrative the press looked at was he was a Black man running for President. His uniqueness made him newsworthy in the early stage of the campaign and that gave his team the strategy of ultimately defeating Clinton and becoming President. If anyone looked at the early assessments of Obama, the same stories surfacing about Bernie Sanders now were written about Obama. The outsider element, the possible spoiler of the inevitable nomination of Clinton, the grassroots surge in support; they were all written about Obama and they are appearing in reports on Sanders.

Reporters underestimate the frustration Americans have about their economic and social situation. In the long run, people might settle for the obvious two establishment front runners for President, but 2008 should be a lesson that people do want change. I’m not sure if we’re angry enough to elect a far left politician to the Presidency but if the Kardashian clan has taught us anything it’s that we may elevate someone to greatness because of slick marketing and in your face marketing. With his millions Donald Trump might be the Presidential candidate we want simply because he doesn’t fit the traditional role of a candidate.