Note though you have to divide it into two camps:  there is a &quot;smugness&quot; associated with Hillary Clinton and a &quot;smugness&quot; associated w&#x2F; critics of Clintonism such as Thomas Frank and those aren&#x27;t the same thing.<p>Note the Republican establishment also is &quot;smug&quot; towards Trump voters.<p>Practically both sides of the establishment &quot;use&quot; voters by pushing a few hot button issues.  For instance,  the Keystone XL pipeline was neither going to destroy the Earth nor was it going to revitalize the US economy.  While people were arguing about that,  they were not talking about any real environmental or economic issues. (Looking at the oil price drop recently,  I wonder if the government saved Transcanada a huge amount of money by stopping Keystone XL.)