Trump the destroyer could herald an unintended revolution: Don Pittis

While in almostevery respect DemocratHillary Clinton comes off asa safer pair of hands, last week's U.S. presidentialdebate left a naggingfeelingthat Republican Donald Trump, by playing the anti-establishment radical, might yettalkhis way to victory.

Trump succeeded in painting Clinton as the status quo candidate. Asurvey of hisplans, from blowing up the central bank to cutting taxes for the rich, means a Trump win may prompt a far more radical transformationthan he and his supporters havebargainedfor.

• #TrumpWon the debate?
• Trump broke law on Cuba,report says

Financial markets andmost credible polls are not taking the possibilityofa Trump win seriously. On the other hand,Trump has repeatedly shown he is no pushover. Scandals and devastating headlines hardly weaken the appeal of his focused message.

Deep trouble

As commentators have taken turns observing, votersin the United Statesare disenchanted with the way things are. Trump fans that disenchantment.

"Our country is in deep trouble," he announced in the debate.

To the purely rational, Clinton's response that the U.S. economy is growing and has produced millions of jobs despite the financial collapse that undeniably unfoldedduring aRepublican watchmade sense.

• Here's how the next U.S. president will be elected
• For more coverage of the election, go to our 2016 U.S. Election page

But Trump's gloom suits the publicmood. Rational or not, his comments promptvisceralanger that blamesforeigners for"stealing our companies and jobs."

And most powerful of all, Trump can play the outsider card.

Blaming Clinton

"Hillary, I'd just ask you this. You've been doing this for 30 years. Why are you just thinking about these solutions right now?" asked Trump in the debate. "For 30 years, you've been doing it, and now you're just starting to think of solutions."

Pointing a finger at failures by "Secretary Clinton and others, politicians," Trump makes it clear he believes he is not just an alternativeto Clinton'steam, but also outside the entire political in-group.

Clinton has said she intends to raise taxes on the rich, but as the default candidate of the businesselite, hands tied by a divided Congress,she may find it hard to do more than tinker. As Trump said, the Democrats have had eight years.

The outsidersolutions being proposed by Trump and his team are undeniablyradical, threatening major changes in the conventional way of doing things.

Blaming the Federal Reserve

Trump has promised a shakeup at the U.S. central bank. He has described a return to the gold standard as "hard" but "wonderful." A Financial Times column by Trump economic adviser Judy Shelton hints at a major rethink.

The U.S. dollar is the anchor of global finance. Dramatic changes in the Fed will affect more than the United States.

Trump says he wants to cut taxes for corporations, break free-trade agreements, make NATO members pay more, stop China from debasing its currency, bring the jobs home.

To a disenchanted electorate, such radical solutions may sound good, and who knows, maybe,like disturbingthe roots of lilac or wisteria as gardeners do to make them bloom, theywill work.

But there is another potential outcome.

Canadian pollster and author Frank Graves, president of Ekos Research, recently showed me some data collected this year that might horrify many Canadians.

Class conflicts?

It showed that a growing trend toward inequality means a large majority, an astounding 57 per cent,fear that we are heading for a period of "class conflicts" if things don't change.

"I take it with a grain of salt but I also thinkit's a really important indicator of just how concerned and upset the public increasingly are," saidGraves in a phone interview.

In a book coming out next week, Graves says there aresolutions, but the changes he proposes to create greater equality and "a shared prosperity" are not Trump's. He says inequality, which is even worse in theU.S., needs something more like the New Deal, the Depression-era reforms that helped restart thepostwar North American economy.

"This was not a matter of tinkering," says Graves. "This was a matter of dramatic, bold reform."

While Trump's own reforms purport to make America great again, the short-term effect, making the rich richer through tax cuts, pulling the rug out from under international trade, sending global currency markets into confusion, could exacerbate a growing sense of class conflict.

Despite calls for bold reform by people like Graves, history shows that making changes in wealth distribution has been difficult, usually requiring a major crisis.

By precipitating such a crisis with untried radical reforms, a victorious Trump could be the catalyst for even greaterchange.

Follow Don on Twitter @don_pittis

More analysis by Don Pittis