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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.
Championships are always overrated as emblems of accomplishment relative to 2nd place finishes, and to consistently making the playoffs after strong regular season performances. Think of it like the NFL, teams that win the Super Bowl are held as heroes, teams that lose Super Bowls are more or less erased from history, often derided more than teams that were much worse all season long. But if we're honest, once a team makes it to the big game, they're only ever one or two ACL tears from winning. The 2004 Eagles weren't nearly as good as the Patriots and lost in the Super Bowl, but two or three unlucky injuries to the Pats and the Eagles would have taken it in a walk and be remembered as this great historic team, rather than written off as "The Reid-McNabb Eagles were good but not great, never got over the line and really won anything."
What was interesting about Trump AND about Hillary at the moment in 2016 was the way they had dominated the primary process (Trump by knocking out a slate of talented contenders one after another, Hillary by being so dominant that only jokes and cranks ever tried to run against her) and forced their parties to acknowledge them as leaders. That indicated that both were forces that would need to be reckoned with for years, if not decades, to come. Their wins in the regular season should be taken as evidence they represent important power blocks, and whether they win or lose in the championship they were still both talented politicians who represented the will of many people.
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