Which governments cut social security, national healthcare services, and federal housing programs, handed them to the "corporations", and caused a populist demagogue to be elected?
Nearly all governments did post the economic crisis and some before. People were evicted from their homes by the banks, living in tent cities. Savings and pensions went up in flames while the banks got bailed out.
That left a bigger mark than the political elite dares to admit. Most democraties are in various stages of being taken over or being influenced by rightwing/populist movements.
Italy: Lega Nord and their rising star Salvini have overtaken the M5 movement in the most recent polling despite them governing together
Germany: Afd is steadily climbing in the polls, Merkel is losing support left and right
France: If it wasn't for Macron they might've had Le Pen. Macron's approval currently sits at <30%
The Netherlands: Rise of both the PVV(anti-muslim freedom party) and FvD (new rightwing movement)
Greece: Ruling political parties decimated by new populist progressive movement
Hungary: Orban won
Austria: Kurz won
UK: Brexit won
US: Trump won
Brazil: Bolsonaro won
Poland/Baltics: Nationalist movements continue to grow
How do you hand jobs over to the corporations when corporations are the ones employing people anyway?
The corporations move those jobs abroad to low-wage countries such as China and India leaving large parts of the population unemployed.
Where's your polling evidence that the people who were most affected economically were the ones who voted for, say, Trump?
Because he won a lot of loyal democratic states by supporting the working classes such as coal miners, small business, construction workers etc. .
And how do you explain the fact that it's the right wing populists who clamor for voting restriction laws, not the liberal establishment?
Because they can't 'sell' it yet. It took a whiile for the alternative media to be silenced but it's slowly happening. The liberal thinking was that if more people voted they'd be more certain of a victory.
But pissed off people don't vote for liberal policies. In the Netherlands we shortly had a referendum. We held two of them which the establishment both lost and soon after they abolished this method of 'direct democracy'.
Also they tend to centralize decision making. If decisions are made by the UN or Brussels a national vote isn't that important anymore. So they use a different method in voting restrictions, one that makes the votes and voting itself meaningless.
Another example from my country. The new leader of a liberal party has said that he wants EU membership to be added to our constitution so no matter which party gets in power, they can't pull us out of the EU.
You mentioned that Trump was the only one who offered an alternative to black voters but 88% of them voted for Hillary Clinton; how do you reconcile this?
I mentioned that episode because it was the first time that a populist made the argument: "Vote for me, you got nothing to lose losers" which they usually bring in a much more subtle way.
"Do you think your country has improved?" , "Do you think those other guys will make your lives better?" is usually the rhetoric that they use. As for black voters, we'll see where they stand at the end of Trump's presidency.
They didn't turn out for Hillary like they did for Obama either.
Almost everything you said is either outright wrong or nonsense.
This is false. What I'm saying is also being said more or less by the likes of Mark Blythe and Ian Bremmer. There's a correlation between the policies enacted by the democracies during the economic crisis (mainly austerity) and their current woes at the hands of populists.
