The Real Trump Victory in Pictures

Joining the Protests

On Nov. 8, exit polls sounded alarm bells as Donald Trump steadily climbed to victory. Then, he won. How could this happen? We blamed pollsters for their inaccurate reporting and getting our hopes high, Washington attacked the FBI for bringing Hillary Clinton's emails back on the table in the final ...
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The Real Trump Victory in Pictures

Moral and Political Competence, Redux

The View from the Rubble

Last spring, when the Democratic primary was still somewhat in doubt, and people worried about the “bruising” primary season damaging the likely standard bearer in the general election, I suggested that the center/center-left/left coalition needed to hear out the debate between Sanders and Clinton. I argued that this was sound ...
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Moral and Political Competence, Redux

It’s Time to Take Trump Seriously

Why we underestimated him, and how we can learn

Let me start by apologizing. The following is a raw reaction to the election results. I still find it difficult to digest that Donald Trump has become President. Even more so considering the fact that since I thought he was going to be elected, I had been sharing my concerns ...
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It’s Time to Take Trump Seriously

The Revolt of the Rust Belt

A closer analysis of Trump’s victory

The election is over and a potentially disastrous candidate has won. The damage to civil tolerance and multiculturalism is likely to be profound. A lot of people’s lives will change. Naturally, people are asking the question: who could have voted Trump into office? Well, clearly it’s white people. This isn’t ...
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The Revolt of the Rust Belt

The Internal Walls in America

Trying to Make Sense of Trump

Donald Trump will be our next president, and I am heartbroken. Simon Critchley recently wrote an article for the NY times in which he describes his nausea with this election. The nausea, he says, emerges from the realization that this is not the America that we thought it was. I ...
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The Internal Walls in America

Why Did Trump Win?

A Proposal for Modesty

Why did Trump win? I begin with a question. Because it is a question being asked by so many people, ordinary citizens (and “undocumented” resident non-citizens) and intellectuals, writers, and academics. And because it is and will long remain a question, one with no simple answer. Election day was only a ...
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Why Did Trump Win?

America the Troubled

Notes on the Political Landscape of a Divided Nation

I. In 2008, I stepped outside upon hearing the news that Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States. I needed a moment to be able to look at the sky, to see, enveloping me, a New America. We had turned our backs decisively on the abuses of the ...
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America the Troubled

The Mo(u)rning After

Finding Words for Political Disaster

Waking up in a state of mourning after Donald Trump's horrifying victory in yesterday's presidential election has caused me to take refuge in one of my favorite childhood movies. The Poseidon Adventure was released in 1972, as political life in the United States was turning from explosion to implosion. This cheesy ...
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The Mo(u)rning After

Adventures in Hillaryland

High expectations. Unexpected failure.

I vote in Brooklyn. When I heard that Hillary’s election night watch party would be in the Javits Center on the Hudson River, I thought that somewhere in that 1.8 million square feet arena there might be room for me. In all the Presidential elections I’ve worked in, I’ve never been ...
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Adventures in Hillaryland

Why Vote for Clinton If You Don’t Believe in Her?

A pragmatic defense of the Democratic Party in 2016

The following was a message I wrote to my friends on the morning of November 6, 2016. Jeffrey Goldfarb recommended that it be published at Public Seminar. I have revised it slightly for this version, but it remains an informal piece. ZVS With a few days left before the end of this election, ...
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Why Vote for Clinton If You Don’t Believe in Her?

Donald’s Dick

A Man Against the Institutions

This election is about the sex of state. In the eyes of millions of his supporters, particularly the men who would make him President, America’s manhood is at stake. Donald Trump is running as an erect phallus, a sexually aggressive man who can break through the forms, crush our enemies ...
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Donald’s Dick

A Tale of Freud, Women’s Bodies and Male Dread

A Psychoanalyst’s take on Trump and Hillary’s Private Position

We are repeatedly told election 2016 is no longer an issues-based election but a question of temperament and personality. Two weeks before voting day, America's choice of a new President had devolved into a referendum on authority, leadership and sex. We are choosing the leader we imagine we want, and ...
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A Tale of Freud, Women’s Bodies and Male Dread