Part of what confuses the issue is the words we use.

Outside of the US, the term Neo-Liberal is pretty much the opposite of actually Liberal.

The Republicans are Neo-Liberals.

The Democrats basically are as well.

They are just two ends of the Neo-Liberal chunk of the political spectrum tied together in the middle by a neat bow made up of green cloth-paper.

As for how it happened, I haven't put enough thought into that yet to give a useful answer I think. It has, however, been building for decades. It started ramping up solidly in 2008 when they were given a target to rail against so that they could unify their base.

Combine that sudden unity of normally disparate forces with a long-term campaign of disenfranchising as many voters as they could get away with and demoralizing the rest, and you got a perfect storm of apathy and depression on one side and energized rage on the other rolling into the 2016 election cycle.

And those voters that the GOP failed to demoralize? The Democrats dealt with them on February 3rd, 2016 by flat up telling them on live TV that they weren't needed. They could go home. Their vote didn't matter. The candidate was already chosen and the Super Delegates would ensure her victory regardless of the popular vote.

And the Media reported the numbers exactly as if that were the case, and after about three nights of Sanders winning by a landslide and Clinton walking away with the larger number of delegates, those voters just stopped showing up... And they didn't show up for the General Election either.

I'm not a Bernie or Bust person. I'm pretty sure had DWS just kept her mouth shut and let things ride, then all of those voters WOULD have shown up a few months later and voted for whoever had the D by their name.

It was almost as if the Democrats intentionally threw the election.

I knew that night that the Republican candidate would win. So, as we watched the Republican primaries, and it started to become apparent who was going to win, I started to fear for our country.