Dear Sweden,
Two years have passed since American society emergency-landed into an ocean of seventeen republican candidates and a broken campaign finance system. No dry land in sight. Today, they have finally spotted the shining shores of the great voting ceremony. The American body politic—bruised and exhausted—will heave itself up on that beach and collapse in the sand.
“It is finally over,” they will cry, “We survived.”
72% of Trump supporters say that American society has changed for the worse since the 1970s and 70% of Clinton supporters say that it has changed for the better. If you think that automation and globalization are killing jobs, then you are more inclined to vote for Donald Trump. If you approve of today’s America—messy, racially diverse, technologically inclined in terms of job creation—then you are inclined to vote for Hillary Clinton. When we look at why people vote, we see that this is a referendum on what we want America to be. Do you want America to be a 1950s vision of a majority-white, majority-Christian society with blue collar jobs that pay well, better family structures and less focus on political correctness, or do you want a more changeable nation with more racial opportunity and more opportunities for women?
–a referendum on identity, pp. 107