Missing the pulse

Beyond the bickering, nastiness and stomach turning rhetoric, politicians have during the course of the year been given unmistakeable messages - they are out of touch with the electorate. The disillusionment with Mr. Narendra Modi by Indian voters, the resounding slap to the political establishment in UK a la Brexit and the rise to the US Presidency by Mr. Donald Trump against expectations and predictions all point to one thing; the pulse of the vox populi has been sorely misread.
A banner waved by a supporter of Mr. Trump encapsulates it well. 'The silent majority is with Trump'. Indeed they were, perhaps not so much for what he stood for than , to put it in his words 'what have you got to lose?'. More jobs have been added in the last eight years in the US , yet the Trump campaign promise of bringing jobs back to America resounded favourably. 
 Puzzled analysts in Europe and America were left with egg on their face at the realisation that  for all the polls and predictions not only did they get it wrong, they have been shown up to have missed popular sentiments. It has been a classic case of the media and pundits getting so close to the political establishments that they too are out of touch. And so the almost cocky assuredness of the self-styled experts has given way to a procession of well attired men and women that are literally spewing gobbledygook.
Every year, the US is a desired destination of migrants , mostly entering illegally. The generous overtures towards  them has a lot to do with future votes, as much as it does with filling gaps in jobs that don't interest locals. Somewhere down the line the powers that be have overlooked the fact that the status-quo has changed. The Brexit vote has brought to the future not just disillusionment but also a very strong protest forwarded in the face of a cobbled together joint face of all parties. On both sides of the Atlantic , there is now a scramble to adjust and shape the road to a future that is undefined.
Mr. Trump has yet to define how he plans to bring back manufacturing from abroad and still provide products cheaply for Americans even as he seeks to lower the minimum pay. On the one hand it is an incentive to hire more people at less cost, thereby bring in line with the overall concept of cost reductions. On the other, low minimum pay means less money for families to run on. 
There is a strong indication that following the collapse of a common market concept, thoughts on trade deals and such must be redefined. There's no point to have a world trade order that seeks to dismantle barriers and then accuses others of dumping products simply because they can produce at lower costs. The North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement is Mr. Trump's targets. The Canada Europe Trade Agreement (CETA) is destined to remain a draft and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) soundly criticised by rights groups seems to be heading the same way.
If more and more people are discovering the importance of basic needs coming first, politicians must shift their views and strategies accordingly. 
People in rural areas feel left out and this is a phenomenon that we in the subcontinent are very well aware of. That the developed world leaders have to be told as much with the rude finger poked in their eyes, may come as a surprise but it is no revelation.
 [email protected]