People can talk cutthroat politics or disingenuous arguments but if there wasn't a standard of living and social mobility decline then it wouldn't really be as pronounced or as effective of a campaign strategy. This political environment is just a byproduct of that. Corrupt, ineffective and bloated institutions are extracting wealth/opportunity from Americans. That's why you get these responses like support for perceived "outsiders" like Obama, Sanders and Trump. People don't really know what to do, but they know something has gone wrong.
Luckily for the establishment/ruling class, people are narcissistic, uninformed and don't really want to accept any responsibility or make any personal sacrifice to fix these problems. So the band will probably play on for as long as it can.
That something wrong is the Fed, having a completely unbacked, fiat currency, which can be printed at will, with manipulated interest rates, and a central bank that can buy up any amount of government debt. Decades of this fiscal recklessness has taught progressive-left politicians they can have anything they want.
As Rush always says, it's hard to compete with Santa Claus. If we had a more self-regulating, self-restraining monetary system, politicians could no longer spend at will and the market-based solutions we espouse would suddenly become politically palatable.
Imagine Obamacare having to operate under a pay-as-you-go system. Oh, that's right, it wouldn't exist in the first place. Period. Ditto for every other failed Democrat pet program post LBJ's Great Society.