This is not to debate the necessity or the wisdom of that program, rather it is to observe that quantitative easing has so distorted our perception of financial reality that it is unrealistic to expect the voting public to vote itself out of goodies and into austerity.
Once that state of mind took possession of the electorate it was hopeless to expect a politician to campaign against spending -the cost of spending has been entirely masked by our power to borrow. Enter Steve Bannon who points out to all who will listen on virtually every continent that the borrowing spree indulged in by the Fed and other national banks went to not only save an elite but to enrich an elite that had themselves caused the great recession. Worse, much of the fiscal and monetary policy that followed impoverished much of the middle class.
So we have an electorate that is largely uninformed that has no idea of the dangers of overspending because there are no observable consequences to overspending, we simply borrow more. They simply know that something is wrong and the system is not working for them -enter Donald Trump.
To those in the electorate who are informed, why should they volunteer to have their rice bowl broken even as they see the elites prospering the more? The odds are that Trump will not be able to convince the electorate that the music must stop, and in fairness we must acknowledge that he is not tried to do so. Rather he has sought to improve only one side of the balance sheet, to improve the economy for the stricken middle-class.
That means that we will continue on this course with the electoral advantage always running toward the spendthrift (read Democrat) over those politicians who would prudently manage our balance sheets. It will require another Great Recession or even, God forbid, another Great Depression to alter the national mindset and open the way for reform.
