>>Housing costs have risen more rapidly than real incomes for millions of people.
>>That's OK for people who make enough to absorb the rise, but there are millions of people in the US who live from paycheck to paycheck. A rent increase of just $50/month is enough to force some of them out. The lucky ones wind up with family members or even in their cars, but some wind up on the street.

So how can that be explained? I get that suburbs get gentrified so people get priced out, but is the issue that there is no affordable houses being built, or that landlords are leaving housing empty rather than meet the market? Because if the market no longer meets the needs of society then there's no obligation for society to honor a failed model.

>>Income inequality has been discussed ad nauseum, but its effects for people on the margins are real.

There's honor in being the breadwinner, no matter how lowly. That's what was taken from US blue collar workers by the selfish 1%, consigning blue collar workers to dependency and hopelessness while Chinese manufacturing boomed and the 1% salivated over short term bumper profits. Society should be able to find a place for all its citizens and again, if the model is failing there's no obligation to honor it.

Why was Trump elected? A cynic might say that people who have lost confidence in the social compact, saw him as a less drastic alternative to revolutionary overthrow of the swamp.

If the cynic is correct then it's a waste of time going on about Russian collusion and Stormy when jobs are coming back. Sheesh, even WAPO and NYT have just published grudging acknowledgment that job creation is the best ever according to some measures. Yet the obstructionists posture on in Congress and Senate, apparently unaware that constituents remember the last president saying that Trump would need a magic wand to bring back manufacturing jobs. So if he's now proved that he has a magic wand, why would representatives call him the most unfit president ever and try to block him? Unless the economy tanks, if there's a voter wave later this year it may be similar to the 95% landslide that HRC enjoyed.