The Horror

To expand on Paul’s post below a little bit…

Even in the increasingly unlikely event that Clinton wins the Electoral College, it’s clear that Nate Silver was right and his critics, certainly including me, was wrong. But obviously predictions aren’t the most important thing right now.

Whenever I write about an asshole who urges swing-state voters to cast vanity votes, there’s inevitably a chorus about it’s not worth talking about, it probably doesn’t matter, only in a very unusual election can it matter. Well, elections are usual until they’re not. There can be a perfect storm: Republican state legislatures suppressing the vote with a huge assist from a partisan Supreme Court, the FBI director might decide to meddle in the election, the media might decide that it needs to Both Sides Do It and so obsessively covers a bullshit pseudo-scandal, very likely an Electoral College that can elect a minority candidate, a white nationalist candidate might turn out to have more appeal to rural white voters than even many cynics would have feared, and there you go.

And the effects of a Trump win are going to be horrible. I wish the irony bros were right about there not really being much difference between the parties, but are they so fucking not. The damage that even four years of Trump and a Republican Congress will do to the planet, to the access of poor people to health care, to the rights of women and racial minorities and workers, to America’s welfare state, to inequality — is unimaginable. I don’t want even want to think about foreign policy. If you didn’t think this was that big a deal before…I don’t even know what to tell you.