I can’t say anything about the presidential election of 2016 that hasn’t already been said. But I was watching and writing and worrying for six months before it happened.
This page is a memorial to those months. It contains the best analysis I could find on the election — the truest words written by thinkers in and out of the mainstream media. Here and there, I’ve taken a few original notes.
I hope this page will be useful to readers in the distant future, as a record from an ordinary citizen. And I hope that what we learned this year helps us the next time we face this kind of dreadful challenge.
Articles
If you could only have read one person during the election, you should have chosen James Fallows, whose Trump Time Capsule series tells a harrowing but inspiring story:
Trump Time Capsule 92: How The Media Undermine American Democracy
A Shorter Guide To Dealing With Trump’s Lies
What A Pathetic Thing Is Decadence (Unfair in a few places, but depicts a few real flaws in the thinking of many younger Trump supporters I’ve encountered.)
Two libertarians and one politically freewheeling computer scientist wrote my three favorite articles on the magnitude of November’s mistake:
The Unit of Caring (who successfully predicted most of 2017)
Scott Aaronson (on the speech Barack Obama should have given the day after)
The last piece contains a number of angry essays from Julia Galef, one of the least aggressive writers on the Internet, whose unabashed fury may be the foremost sign that something terribly wrong happened on Election Day.
My favorite newspaper endorsement, because they knew they’d lose subscribers (see the comment section) and they did the right thing anyway:
The Dallas Morning News Endorses Their First Democrat In 75 Years
The best outpouring of righteous anger, the day after:
“I won’t go back to not knowing that you–every single one of you with the yard signs and bumper stickers and baseball caps–voted for someone who, if given a chance, would sexually assault me. I’m not going to just pretend you didn’t look at that man’s name on your ballot and, having seen those headlines splashed all over your social media, went ahead and selected it.”
A few good articles on the myths around Clinton’s “scandals”:
Snopes: Hillary’s Time As A Public Defender
Vox: North Korean Passport Nonsense
The Washington Post: Sober Analysis Of The Goldman Sachs Speeches
I also read many true articles about Clinton’s weaknesses, but none stood out as offering unusual insight. She may have been a mediocre strategic thinker as Secretary of State, and she may have started an unnecessary war. But given our depressing strategic and military record in the last 50 years, I’m uncertain which politicians would have done better in her place. Her greatest failure in my eyes was a failure to condemn her husband and stand up for the women he attacked, but on the topic of sexual assault, she was still the better candidate.
Two good pieces on the parts of the country most widely associated with Trump’s candidacy, and on the true flaws and virtues of those places:
Appalachia As A Mythic “Trump Country”
The Real Bubble Is Rural America
On the breakdown of truth, and much of the media:
The Awl: When Truth Falls Apart
On the dark, dusty corners of democracy:
The Guardian: The FBI Is Trumpland
On double standards:
Vox: Clinton Supporters Are The New Silent Majority
And the two best attacks on liberals, and liberal politics, that I could find:
“You would vote for a liberal Donald Trump” (Or would I? I really don’t know.)
On the Second Law of Thermodynamics:
Analysis
Almost nothing original here. Just my quick thoughts on some major factors that, even if talked about, weren’t talked about enough.
Every two weeks, a Trump story appeared which would have disqualified Hillary instantly. I don’t believe that any of the Hillary stories, if stapled to Trump, would have disqualified him. Why?
Always remember: Trump won because Republicans vote for Republicans and not Democrats. This may not be true in a few corner cases, and those corner cases might have “mattered”, but let’s heed the words of Ezra Klein: We shouldn’t be asking how he got from 45% to 48%, but why he got to 45% at all, or even close.
Is there anyone we pretend to hate more than we pretend to hate bullies? Why, then, would we elect a bully? Does America really see this particular bully as a rebel? In our secret hearts, do we actually admire bullies?
It’s unfortunate that anyone has to be the President. It’s an insanely difficult job, not really fit for any single person. But given that someone does need to be President, we should probably pick the person who’s better at skills like “listening to experts” and “changing their mind”. Failing that, I’d settle for a strong moral compass. These are not inherently Democratic or Republican traits. But they are inherently un-Trumpian traits.
Throughout the election, whether I was reading liberal or conservative sources — or Trump’s own Twitter feed — I think I could count on one hand the number of times I learned something that made me like the man more than I had before. This makes me uncomfortable. Normally, learning about someone’s life makes me like them more, as I begin to understand their complex humanity. That almost never happened with Donald Trump. He is the closest I’ve ever come to defining someone mentally as an un-person.
Improving The Next Political Season
There are many better ways to vote than the system the U.S. uses now. The Center for Election Science is trying to drag the country uphill, to a more efficient future.
Also, when we really try, we’re better now at exploring our democratic options, and explaining policy to the masses, than we ever were before. This California ballot website is the perfect example of this heartening phenomenon.