"The world turned upside down"

That was the name of the tune that the British allegedly played when General Cornwallis' army was surrendering to George Washington at Yorktown in 1781. The most powerful empire around the world had just been defeated by their own colonies and a rather irregular army in a shocking upset.

Now, 235 years later, it's pretty common for the established powers to go down when battling natives on their own soil.

The U.S. military is regularly going down when battling "4th generation" forces (fighters that aren't affiliated with a state but with a tribe or cause) despite tremendous advantages in money, technology, and resources.

In the political world, the whole weight of the U.K. political establishment and the European Union was unable to prevent "Brexit," which was essentially the native English people choosing British sovereignty over globalized governance over and against the wish to remain by Scotland, North Ireland, and immigrant-heavy London.

The struggles of the United States political establishment to win victories against the local upstart, nationalist outsider has also been stark. It started with Trump beating Jeb Bush (choice of the party elites) senseless in the polls and early GOP primaries.

The most stark example was when Trump went into South Carolina, which was expected to be an establishment "firewall," and ripped Jeb's brother George for "failing to stop 9/11" and incurring a firestorm of anger and hatred from virtually everyone in the Republican party.

Many expected for this to be the moment where Trump finally faltered. Instead he won South Carolina with 32.5% of the vote in a crowded field. Second place was basically a tie between Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz who had 22.5% and 22.3% respectively. Jeb got 7.8%, zero delegates, and was forced out of the race in humiliating fashion.

Now we come to the general election. It's common for insiders like the 538 bloggers to regularly mock Trump for failing to raise money, or for establishment friendly conservative pundits to caution that without support from the nation's elites that Trump can't win a general election against Clinton.

In general, the common wisdom is that you can't win a battle for the country without major dollars. Everyone is still operating under the same underlying assumptions that the Pentagon has about warfare.

"You can't beat the U.S. military with home made bombs and rusty AK47s!!!"

Well apparently you can, and in an age of DVR and increased skepticism towards the ruling elites, it's very much in question whether dropping ad bombs across the airwaves is actually that useful.

In fact, judging by recent swing state polls and campaign spending, there's some question about whether taking enormous campaign donations from the wealthy and using them on ads is beneficial at all:

In modern warfare between a foreign state and a 4th generation opponent, having superior weaponry and being able to drop bombs safely from a distance is actually a major weakness. Why? Because it's seen as bullying, it turns the local resistance into an underdog that the natives root for, and it ties the bomber in with the very political establishment that people don't trust.

Victory for the establishment has to come in the form of them maintaining control over an area and they can't control the area if they are seen as illegitimate bullies.

The same is now true for American politics. Voters on either side are not confident that the ruling elites in either party are actually acting in the everyday man's best interest. Clinton's Wall Street cash grabs and massive spending tends to underscore the fact that she's the choice of the elites and that the last thing they want is for Trump to win.

What happens if everyday Americans increasingly see Trump as the only true, American option and Hillary as the figure head for an oppressive elite?

The world has been turned upside down and the factors that used to determine elections don't quite matter as much anymore.