Thousands of protesters rally outside the Capitol Hill in the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C., chanting slogans such as "one person, one vote," and "justice," while carrying banners and placards that read "If money is speech, then speech ain't free" on April 18, 2016. (Photo/CNS)

Public dissatisfied with elites, trust eroding

The recent Democracy Spring protests, which saw a record number of people arrested on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, not only adds to the drama of the US elections but also shows the public's growing disappointment in US politics, which continues to lose its cohesion and becomes more fragmented in the hands of interest groups, analysts said.

According to the website of Democracy Spring, which organized the protests, by Monday, over 1,300 people had been arrested on the steps of the US Congress protesting against the influence of big money in US politics.

The demonstrators were charged under the DC Code prohibiting "crowding, obstructing, or incommoding," said a police statement.

The demonstrators were later released.

The protest is yet another event in the chaotic nomination contest, which has seen the rise of two nontraditional politicians - Republican candidate Donald Trump, who was a complete outsider with no political experience prior to entering the elections, and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a "Democratic socialist," raising a lot of eyebrows among conservatives.

"You can clearly see there is a change in the political spectrum," Zhou Qi, a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"There is a return of populism in the US. The middle to lower class constituents are unhappy with how a lot of society's problems have remained unsolved for years. They are seeking a change and Trump and Sanders each represent a different direction," he said.

Trump has previously advocated a ban on all Muslims from traveling to the US and building a wall on the border with Mexico to fend off all illegal immigrants. He also vowed to bring jobs back from China.

Sanders, for his part, wants to take on what he calls the "greedy" and "fraudulent" Wall Street and break up big banks.

"A core issue is that the US public has grown dissatisfied with traditional political elites and the trust continues to erode," Ni Feng, deputy director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

Ni believes that the new US administration, regardless of who the president may be, will have to invest a considerable amount of resources to address its domestic woes as reflected in the current contests.