Why New Hampshire voters flocked to Trump and Sanders

New Hampshire voters handed stunning victories to the two outsiders: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Donald Trump won 36% of the GOP vote, followed by Kasich at 16%. Then the three also-ran amigos: Canadian-born Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and robotic Mario Rubio, all at 11%.

On the Democratic side, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders humiliated Hillary Clinton by defeating her 60% to 39%.

I love the fact that the majority of so-called political experts and pundits on both the left and right in the US and Canada are stumped by the success of the Trumpster and the raging septuagenarian socialistic Sanders, the junior senator from small town-state Vermont.

Trump’s reality TV show run for the presidency was supposed to have fizzled months ago. The experts had the GOP coalescing behind the heavily-funded and favored Jeb Bushm or the more immigrant-friendly, youthful and telegenic Marco Rubio.

Except, unlike Trump, none of these other candidates appear comfortable in their own skins.

Jebster will never be ready for prime time. In the debates, he came across as boring and indecisive, burdened by his tight-assed New England upbringing and the collective memory of his brother George’s shoot from the hip, overly militaristic and economically unsustainable presidency.

Meanwhile, Rubio is just a poor man’s middle of the road Cuban Mitt Romney, caught in the vortex of the GOP’s highly primal primary politics. In the most recent New Hampshire debate, Rubio shot himself in both feet as he robotically repeated his talking points. One day Rubio is all for legitimizing the illegal immigrants. The next day, bowing to the anti-immigrant GOP right wing, he is all for deporting them.

In this sense, he and the other Republican contenders are much like the now reviled President Barack Obama.

President Barry started with such “hope” and promise. But he has been exposed as the sorriest US president in the last century. He talks and talks and talks. But on the world stage, he carries a very limp stick.

Barry, the leader of the most powerful country in the world, is openly mocked by the thuggish Putin, Arab oil sheiks and Iranian mullahs, to whom he continually prostrates himself. He constantly seeks their approval, just as he unsuccessfully sought, throughout his life, the approval of his distant Kenyan father, who had abandoned him at an early age.

Obama will be forever associated with the pussy-whipped slogan, “leading from behind.” His disappearing “red line in the Mideast sand on Syria,” was the final straw that broke the camel’s back (to mix Mideast metaphors.)

From that time forth, Putin jumped in and overshadowed him. The Iranian mullahs mocked him. And Barry’s key allies in Europe, the Mideast (Israel), Asia (Japan) and South Asia (India) began distancing themselves from him and America.

The result?

An embarrassing near-fatal blow to America’s confidence and national self-esteem, both domestically and internationally.

On the domestic front, the economy has benefited the wealthy on Wall Street and Silicon Valley — but the middle class of Middle America? Not so much. And these angry Americans blame Obama and the political elites from both parties for their financially stagnant lives.

All this accounts for the rise of both Trump and Sanders.

Americans — young, old, white, male, female and of color — want America to be great again. They are tired of settling for mediocrity. Of just getting by. They want to prosper. They want a better financial and economic future for themselves and their children. They want to have a shot at what Trump has — and is promising.

They want to live in a stronger and more competitive America which is not afraid to beat China, Japan and Germany on the economic front. A nation that is not afraid to stand up for American values both at home and abroad, one that will exercise its military power against its enemies.

As for the Democrats, Sanders genuinely believes that government can be a force for good and can uplift all Americans, beyond mediocrity to greatness. Sanders has captured the youth vote (both male and female) with his call for massive change. For a revolution: Free public college tuition. Universal, single-payer, publicly-run, affordable, government-controlled health care. That is, The Canadian model.

And like Trump, Sanders has attacked the Wall Street and Silicon Valley elites who appear to be prospering at the expense of hard-working average Americans.

The big story in New Hampshire and in these primaries in general is that Democratic men and women under 45 are flocking to Sanders and have abandoned the Hillary, and for many good reasons.

These young and middle-aged Democrats see Clinton as “yesterday’s woman,” a tired, old, fat congenital liar and prevaricator. Scandals, lies and deceptions are embedded in her DNA: Whitewater; Benghazi; the destruction of her national security/private emails; Slick Willy selling access to Secretary of State Hillary for millions — the list goes on.

Young Democratic women also see Clinton as no advocate for women’s rights. Instead they view her as a power-hungry Lady Macbeth who humiliated and destroyed scores of vulnerable women who’d been preyed upon by her sexual predator of her husband.

I predict a Trump/Sanders fight to the death.

And a Trump White House in 2017.