On November 15, The New Yorker published, Aftermath Sixteen Authors on Trump’s America.  You will find extraordinary essays by Toni Morrison, Atul Gawande, Junot Diaz and more, each with incredible insights into what happened on November 9th. We are doomed to repeat history if we do not examine it deeply. I would strongly encourage everyone to read this article and share it with others.

I include a couple of quotes to whet your appetite, but the entire piece deserves to be read. From George Packer

“The Democratic Party claims half the country, but it’s hollowed out at the core. Hillary Clinton became the sixth Democratic Presidential candidate in the past seven elections to win the popular vote; yet during Barack Obama’s Presidency the Party lost both houses of Congress, fourteen governorships, and thirty state legislatures, comprising more than nine hundred seats. The Party’s leaders are all past the official retirement age, other than Obama, who has governed as the charismatic and enlightened head of an atrophying body. Did Democrats even notice? More than Republicans, they tend to turn out only when they’re inspired. The Party has allowed personality and demography to take the place of political organizing.”  That we have lost 30 legislatures in 8 years says a good deal about how the Democrats have turned their backs to middle America to curry favor with the 1%, celebrities and Wall St.  It hasn’t worked very well for eight years and it didn’t work very well on November 9th.

Doctor and Public Health researcher Atul Gawande gets at the core of how this has happened.

“Nearly seventy per cent of working-age Americans lack a bachelor’s degree. Many of them saw an establishment of politicians, professors, and corporations that has failed to offer, or even to seem very interested in, a vision of the modern world that provides them with a meaningful place of respect and worth.”

In my blog on November 12, I encouraged readers to listen and look within. Part of listening is to read different perspectives. I’d encourage starting here and then when done, look within.