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Just before Trump was elected, Scott wrote a great piece called Tuesday shouldn't change the narrative. In it he talks about how the race between Trump and Hillary was very close, close enough that random fluctuations in opinion or random events like the weather could be the deciding factor in the race. He argues that people shouldn't change their worldview based on whatever the outcome is. I believe I see so many people falling into this trap though. It didn't take long after Trump won for people on all sides to start talking as if it was always inevitable, like "Trump won because he inspired people more and riled up his base, Clinton was an uninspiring candidate playing too safe" or "Trump's victory was inevitable because of the deep history of racism in the country", etc. I feel like (though I'm not sure I can think of examples off the top of my head) even Scott might fall into this trap a little bit.
People even took the victory as an indictment of MSM, since most sources said that Trump had something like a 1% chance of winning. I believe this is illogical, though, because even if he did have a 1% chance of winning, it could have been that 1% chance that caused him to win. It's not like whoever has the highest percent chance at the time of the election is declared the winner.
I'm just curious to hear people's thoughts on this, both about this pattern of thought of erroneously retroactively changing worldviews or thinking events were inevitable, as well as about the 2016 election. I think that Scott's article has a good lesson, and it'd do most people good to try to remember it more, before taking the events which have transpired as an indication that only those events could have ever transpired.
The common wisdom these days is that Clinton was a uniquely awful candidate so of course she lost; this is obviously wrong, Clinton was a very strong candidate, with access to immense funds, a social network of insiders at every level of politics and business, Clinton name recognition, and the full force of Girl Power and the media behind her. Similarly, the common wisdom now is that of course Biden won, he was a return to normalcy and proof that Trump was widely hated.
This ignores, of course, that Trump received the second largest number of votes of any candidate, ever, even if you accept the election was on the up and up, which I find to be a dubious proposition at best, and more than he did the first go around, and this was even with the media uniformly against him and the political machines of both parties loathing him with every fiber of their being.
The real takeaway is that the electorate is roughly but not perfectly split, and that elections come down to random fluctuations. Run Biden v. Trump again, and it's not at all unlikely Trump wins, especially if election laws are actually followed this time. Run Clinton v. Trump again, and it's entirely possible Clinton wins.
The nation is a house divided and it stands by inertia alone.
Sad, but definitely true. Unless we can unite somehow, I can't help but think that the current divisions in our society will literally destroy the country. I don't really know how to fix it, but it's pretty depressing to contemplate.
how are these divisions worse than those during the civil war? or reconstruction? or the gilded age? prohibition? this? Active, violent conflict between unions and bosses?
Divisions have been here for ages, and the current divisions seem much less bad than the past ones. All the trump and dems still do their jobs, and the economy still advances rapidly. it's not going anywhere!
The divisions are not worse than those during the Civil War, but that is only because the Civil War is as bad as it can get. Because then you have a civil war. Being better than the absolute worst possible does not mean you're good.
just for the sake of being a pedantic fuck, i find it hard to believe that the civil war is as bad as political division could get. Shermans march was pretty hardcore but it stopped when it could have done some victory laps just killin routed confederates.
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