KENYA BARRIS, “Lemons,” Black-ish, ABC, January 11, 2016. Anthony Anderson as Andre:
“Do I understand what anybody in their right mind could have seen in Trump? No! But maybe that’s why we lost. Over fifty million people felt something. And I’m not saying that they were right. But I don’t think it’s possible that all, half, or even most of them were nuts. Or racists. Or hated women . . . It’s time to stop calling each other names. And we start trying to have those conversations. If we don’t, we’ll end up being in a country that’s even more divided for a long time.”
VINCENT BEVINS, Facebook post, June 24, 2016. Reporter pinpoints the reasonable concerns underlying the rise of Trump and Britons’ vote to leave the European Union:
“Both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very, wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for thirty years. Questions such as: Who are the losers of globalization, and how can we spread the benefits to them and ease the transition? Is it fair that the rich can capture almost all the gains of open borders and trade, or should the process be more equitable? Can we really sustainably create a media structure that only hires kids from top universities (and, moreover, those prick graduates that can basically afford to work for free for the first 5–10 years) who are totally ignorant of regular people, if not outright disdainful of them? Do we actually have democracy, or do banks just decide? Immigration is good for the vast majority, but for the very small minority who see pressure on their wages, should we help them, or do they just get ignored?”
KEN BURNS, “2016 Stanford Commencement Address,” delivered June 12, 2016:
“For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and character of candidates who were clearly qualified. That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified. So before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house, to fight against, no matter your political persuasion, the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance; who is against lots of things, but doesn’t seem to be for anything, offering only bombastic and contradictory promises, and terrifying Orwellian statements; a person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesn’t seem to matter; who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything but himself and his own enrichment . . .”
DAVE CHAPPELLE, monologue, Saturday Night Live, NBC, November 12, 2016. Imagining President-elect Trump’s conversation with President Obama at the White House:
“Hello, Donald. How ya feeling?”
“Oh, God. Got to tell you, this job looks like it’s going to be a lot harder than I thought.”
“Really? It’s not that hard, I mean at least you get to be white while you’re doing it.”
TAYLOR DOBBS and ANGELA EVANCIE, “How the Iowa Caucus Works, In 2 Minutes (Starring Legos),” Vermont Public Radio, January 27, 2016. Delightful animation explaining the mechanics of the Iowa Caucus using toys. Answers the age-old question of how precinct captains convince a plastic Yoda to join their candidate’s preference group.
ROD DREHER, “Tribune of Poor White People,” American Conservative, July 22, 2016. Question and answer with J. D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy. Vance:
“No one seems to understand why conventional blunders do nothing to Trump. But in a lot of ways, what elites see as blunders people back home see as someone who—finally—conducts themselves in a relatable way. He shoots from the hip; he’s not constantly afraid of offending someone; he’ll get angry about politics; he’ll call someone a liar or a fraud. This is how a lot of people in the white working class actually talk about politics, and even many elites recognize how refreshing and entertaining it can be! So it’s not really a blunder as much as it is a rich, privileged Wharton grad connecting to people back home through style and tone. Viewed like this, all the talk about ‘political correctness’ isn’t about any specific substantive point, as much as it is a way of expanding the scope of acceptable behavior. People don’t want to believe they have to speak like Obama or Clinton to participate meaningfully in politics, because most of us don’t speak like Obama or Clinton.”
DAVE EGGERS, “None of the Old Rules Apply,” Guardian, November 18, 2016. BANR’s founding editor drives across the country in the aftermath of the election:
“I left the memorial and turned on to a two-lane road, part of the Lincoln Highway that runs through the state—part of the first coast-to-coast highway in the United States. Just beyond a sign advertising home-grown sweetcorn, there was a residential home, the first house anyone might encounter when leaving the United 93 Memorial, and on this home, there is a vast Confederate flag draped over the front porch.
It’s important to note that this was the Lincoln Highway. And that the Civil War ended 160 years ago. And that Pennsylvania was not a state in the Confederacy. So to see this, an enormous Confederate flag in a Union state, a mile from a symbol of national tragedy and shared sacrifice, was an indicator that there was something very unusual in the mood of the country. Ancient hatreds had resurfaced. Strange alliances had been formed. None of the old rules applied.”
ALEC MACGILLIS, “Revenge of the Forgotten Class,” ProPublica, November 10, 2016. The Rust Belt angle:
“Tiffany Chesser, said she was voting for [Trump] because her boyfriend worked at a General Electric light-bulb plant nearby that was seeing more of its production lines being moved to Mexico. She saw voting for Trump as a straightforward transaction to save his job. ‘If he loses that job we’re screwed—I’ll lose my house,’ she said. ‘There used to be a full parking lot there—now you go by, there are just three trucks in the lot.’”
LIZ MERIWETHER, “Which Game of Thrones Characters Would be Republicans, According to Delegates at the RNC,” Vulture.com, July 22, 2016:
“Mike refused to assign a party to the psychotic King Joffrey, because ‘I don’t think you want to say that any political party is necessarily going to take a crossbow and shoot a naked woman to a bedpost 17 times. That would just be rude. We’re trying to be respectful in our political discourse.’”
MATTHEW SCHMITZ, “Donald Trump, Man of Faith,” First Things, August 2016. Theological journal traces the Republican nominee’s religious beliefs back to Norman Vincent Peale, pastor and author of the best-selling self-help book, The Power of Positive Thinking. Trump attended Peale’s church and often cites him as a major influence in his life:
“At a campaign event in Iowa, Trump shocked the audience by saying that he had never asked God for forgiveness. All his other disturbing statements—his attacks on every vulnerable group—are made intelligible by this one. The self-sufficient faith Trump absorbed from Peale has no place for human weakness. Human frailty, dependency, and sinfulness cannot be acknowledged; they must be overcome.”
WRITING STAFF OF parks and recreation, “A Letter to America from Leslie Knope, Regarding Donald Trump,” Vox.com, November 10, 2016. A beloved fictional public servant offers hope and apologies to American girls:
“When I was in fourth grade, my teacher Mrs. Kolphner taught us a social studies lesson. The 17 students in our class were introduced to two fictional candidates: a smart if slightly bookish-looking cartoon tortoise named Greenie, and a cool-looking jaguar named Speedy . . . Before we voted, Greg Laresque asked if he could nominate a third candidate, and Mrs. Kolphner said ‘Sure! The essence of democracy is that everyone—’ and Greg cut her off and said, ‘I nominate a T. rex named Dr. Farts who wears sunglasses and plays the saxophone, and his plan is to fart as much as possible and eat all the teachers,’ and everyone laughed, and before Mrs. Kolphner could blink, Dr. Farts the T. rex had been elected president of Pawnee Elementary School in a 1984 Reagan-esque landslide, with my one vote for Greenie the Tortoise playing the role of ‘Minnesota.’
After class, I was inconsolable. Once the other kids left, Mrs. Kolphner came over and put her arm around me. She told me I had done a great job advocating for Greenie the Tortoise . . .
‘Greenie was the better candidate,’ I said. ‘Greenie should have won.’
She nodded.
‘I suppose that was the point of the lesson,’ I said.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘The point of the lesson is: People are unpredictable, and democracy is insane.’”