The reasons why Trump has traction among those left behind by globalisation

An old saying goes 'There is a time and place for everything', but I am not convinced that should apply to a Donald Trump presidency. However, you only have to be in America for a day or two to get an understanding as to why the stars appear to be aligned in the property tycoon's favour as far as a particular section of the US electorate is concerned.

As another saying goes 'Timing is everything', much to everyone's surprise, including his, there is a lot of rain for the umbrellas Trump is selling. Sitting in Peekskill, New York, 50 miles up the Hudson River from Manhattan with five white Americans who don't have a university degree, you quickly get a front-row seat to the rich vein of frustration that the Trump juggernaut is trying to mine as the swing voter who could tip this election.

The good news is that not all these typically blue-collar Democratic voters are buying his 'amazing' umbrellas. At least, not yet. But they are certainly tempted as they are fed up getting drenched by their perception of the growing inequity in the division of the American dream.

There are many reasons why Trump has traction among this constituency and they all revolve around one singular theme – exhaustion.

There is an exhaustion following 2008's global financial crisis that the well-being of the working middle classes isn't improving, and an ever-increasing rising tide of belief that it never will as real wages flat line stateside.

The taxi driver who picked me up from John F Kennedy airport, who is a union bartender two days a week and does the occasional driving gig on the side for cash to make ends meet, is ready to vote Trump into office because he is vein-poppingly angry at the 'too big to fail' crowd who were bailed out by the federal government and are now rewarding each other with multi-million dollar bonuses, while he can't get a full-time job.

The 'too big to fail' theory asserts that certain corporations, and particularly financial institutions, are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the greater economic system, and that they therefore must be supported by government when they face potential failure.

Proponents of this theory believe that some institutions are so important that they should become recipients of beneficial financial and economic policies from governments or central banks.

'We need to clean out the place. . .' was a recurring declaration of frustration among the five New York residents I met, and if one was to extrapolate that anger out another decade or two you could see things getting a little bit ugly in the great heartland of America.

People are also exhausted with the political correctness of never telling it like it is. The neutrality or opaqueness of language has paralysed too many from diagnosing the socioeconomic illness, never mind treating the ailment.

One way to understand Trump's apparent success is the fact that he is perceived to state things as they really are, without the filter of establishment jargon and what some denounce as 'political correctness'. To be sure, Trump is 'telling it like it is' for those who believe what he says. For those who disagree with his views, the 'like it is' is a racist, fascist, Islamophobic, narrow-minded and essentially false perception of reality.

"I think the big problem this country has is being political correct. I have been challenged so many times on political correctness, and frankly I don't have time for political correctness. And to be honest, this country doesn't have time either," Donald Trump said during the Republican Primary process to select a candidate

In other words, Trump is 'telling it like it is' because he is giving voice to opinions that have only rarely been overtly adopted by influential presidential candidates or presidents. This ultra-frankness, perceived by many as rude, is resonating with a demographic who are feeling marginalised and sidelined without a voice.

"It is about time we told the Chinese and others what to do. We need someone in the White House that is going to speak his mind to those getting away with taking advantage of America all the time," said the part-time minimum-wage worker who manages an amateur Ultimate Fighting Championship gym in Peekskill.

"I have never voted Republican, and I have always insisted my family do the same, but on this occasion I am going with the person Trump and not the party," he said.

The Democrats will have to hope that there are not too many of these defectors. In an unscientific poll of the five working middle-class voters with no third-level education who I met with, those with the more stable full-time union jobs remained unconvinced that a billionaire real estate developer from New York was the answer to their ailments, but they are getting sweaty palms frustrated waiting for Hillary Clinton to address them.

Sean Evers is the Founder and Managing Partner of Dubai, UAE-based strategic consultancy Gulf Intelligence. In the run up to the 2016 US Presidential Election, Sean would be authoring a series of articles for the International Business Times scrutinising America's socioeconomic challenges and the response of both the Trump and Clinton campaigns to economic demands of the electorate.