Culture

10 Great Things To Read About Donald Trump And The US Election Today

It's time to reflect on what's happened, and prepare for what comes next.

by Meg Watson  8 November 2016

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

We’ve had 18 months of campaigning, conflict, disgust, and despair. Now, with less than 7 hours to go until voting starts, it’s time to sit back and soak it all in. I’m not sure if this is the end of something monumental or the start of something even bigger, but we could all use a moment to rest either way.

Here’s a collection of some of the best writing on the internet to offer some reflection and preparation for whatever comes next.

–

‘Bonfire of the Narratives‘ – Richard Cooke, The Monthly 

Richard Cooke was probably all over your Facebook feed earlier this year with his great and deeply relevant essay ‘The Boomer Supremacy’, now he’s dived into the presidential election with a similarly insightful piece. ‘Bonfire of the Narratives’, which went online this weekend, unravels the anomalies of US politics in 2016. It interrogates the spectacle and mayhem of the campaign with an outsider’s perspective, offers fresh historical and nuanced social context, and ultimately tries to make sense of the spectacularly bizarre events which are unfolding before us.

Cooke circles around the idea that Trump’s rise is fuelled by broader cultural fragmentation that’s in turn been spurred on by disruptive technology. This is a popular talking point — our era is now commonly being referred to as “post-fact” or “post-truth”, and the rise and influence of the alt-right has been flagged repeatedly throughout the elction — but that doesn’t make it any less startling.

“[Trump rallies] are manifestations of the comments section, the anonymous Twitter egg, the hate email and ‘shit-post’ made flesh. The Swedish police recently did a study about the kind of people who make death threats against the media (often the same ones who make death threats against women). They are usually marginalised men, unsuccessful in school and work, who enjoy poor relationships with women. Here in the United States, these men are now more numerous than ever before. If the vote were restricted to white men only, as it used to be, Trump would win in a landslide. It is not a coincidence that in the first year a woman contends for the presidency the GOP base has nominated a class-A misogynist to oppose her.

“This political reality was gestated within digital confines, but has now broken loose. We are living in a simulation, in a way. Only it’s not simulation anymore.”

–

‘What Should a Political Wife Be?’ – Lindsay Zoladz, The Ringer

With so much attention given to the hugely controversial figures running for president, there’s been little critical light cast on those standing by their sides. In this essay, Zoladz addresses the number of comical and perhaps at times cruel representations of Melania Trump we’ve seen over the campaign and tries to unearth some truth about the woman herself.

Is Melania Trump a boogeywoman for liberal feminism? Does she (or should she) share any responsibility for her husband’s sins? Also, what does the concept of the ‘political wife’ even mean in an election in which we could very well have a First Man?

“The person I [increasingly see] is not the disempowered, silent model-wife, but a woman who has chosen to use her considerable economic and social power solely to diminish the concerns of women who do not share her privileges. We are weeks past the point of playful and comic assertions that there is some ‘other’ smarter, more subversive Melania hiding out below the surface.

“We do not want to deny Melania agency by presuming she is solely the one-dimensionally loyal, beautiful wife of a rich man  —  or by presuming that she must conform to a role that she never signed up for. But we are denying her agency if we fail to note how little she has done with every opportunity to complicate our picture of her, or how she has showed her support and idle complicity in the rise of a candidate whose administration would make daily life worse for women, and whose campaign already has.”

–

‘Dangerous Idiots: How the Liberal Media Elite Failed Working-Class Americans’ – Sarah Smarsh, The Guardian

Smarsh starts this piece with a portrait of her grandmother, Betty: a 71-year-old who has “busted knees that once stood on factory lines”, “smoking-induced emphysema”, “the false teeth she’s had since her late 20s”, and “a womb she paid a stranger to thrust a wire hanger inside” before Roe v Wade. Betty supported Bernie Sanders and stands as symbol of a group Smarsh claims has been overlooked during this election: working-class white people who don’t support Trump.

The piece takes a wide-angle look at the media’s treatment (and occasional complete erasure) of the working class and suggests that, in many ways, they’ve been unfairly targeted in this year’s political commentary. Racism and sexism aren’t just confined to people who work for minimum wage, she contends. It’s a distinct contrast and response to the countless viral videos of progressive (and often privileged) reporters smirking about the ill-informed opinions of loud and ‘lower-class’ people at Trump rallies.

“Media makers cast the white working class as a monolith and imply an old, treacherous story convenient to capitalism: that the poor are dangerous idiots. The two-fold myth about the white working class — that they are to blame for Trump’s rise, and that those among them who support him for the worst reasons exemplify the rest — takes flight on the wings of moral superiority affluent Americans often pin upon themselves. I have never seen them flap so insistently as in today’s election commentary, where notions of poor whiteness and poor character are routinely conflated.”

–

‘The Fury and the Failure of Donald Trump’, Matt Taibi, Rolling Stone

In this, one of a number of great pieces he’s written about Trump over the course of the campaign, Taibi examines something we’ve all become intimately familiar with: fatigue. How have the innumerable gaffes and outrages — that would have, incidentally, left any other political campaign in ruins — actually fuelled this man’s rise to the White House? Where does the Republican Party, and more broadly the US political system, go from here? How long will it be until we’re forced to contend with a Trump “dong shot”?

“He ran as an outsider antidote to a corrupt two-party system, and instead will leave that system more entrenched than ever. If he goes on to lose, he will be our Bonaparte, the monster who will continue to terrify us even in exile, reinforcing the authority of kings. If you thought lesser-evilism was bad before, wait until the answer to every question you might have about your political leaders becomes, ‘Would you rather have Trump in office?’

“Trump can’t win. Our national experiment can’t end because one ageing narcissist got bored of sex and food. Not even America deserves that. But that doesn’t mean we come out ahead. We’re more divided than ever, sicker than ever, dumber than ever. And there’s no reason to think it won’t be worse the next time.” 

–

‘Things Still Matter’ – Jon Favreau, The Ringer

Favreau takes a much more optimistic approach to Taibi. His contention: actually, hey, the world is not completely fucked! Ooh boy, is it a controversial one.

“For most of the campaign, Trump’s ability to avoid the political immolation that usually follows overt displays of racism, sexism, pathological dishonesty, or gross incompetence from a presidential candidate has led to a common refrain among political types: ‘Nothing matters’…

“[But there are] a few political truths that have not been upended during this uniquely bizarre election:

1. Campaigning still works.

2. Making an argument against your opponent still works.

3. Laying out an optimistic vision for the future still works.

4. A successful convention with compelling speakers and great speeches can still persuade and inspire voters who are on the fence, or haven’t yet made up their minds.

It’s worth noting that this was written before Trump’s comeback in the polls, but let’s hope there’s still truth in it.

–

‘I’m With the Banned — Welcome to the Scream Room’ – Laurie Penny, Medium

Penny’s piece actually works as a great companion to Richard Cooke’s. While Cooke speculates about the rise of the alt-right and the effect it’s had on the Republican Party this year, Penny witnesses it first-hand. Here, she chronicles her time at the Republican National Convention, the various altercations she has with the notorious alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos, and what she calls “the death of reason”.

It’s a dispiriting and deeply necessary piece of writing that, at just four months old, feels far too prescient than it has any right to be.

“What’s happening to this country has happened before, in other nations, in other anxious, violent times when all the old certainties peeled away and maniacs took the wheel. It’s what happens when weaponised insincerity is applied to structured ignorance. Donald Trump is the Gordon Gekko of the attention economy, but even he is no longer in control. This culture war is being run in bad faith by bad actors who are running way off-script, and it’s barely begun, and there are going to be a lot of refugees.”

–

‘America Is More Fragile Than You Think: A Former Marine Corps Officer on Why Voters Must Defeat Donald Trump’ – Jake Cusack, Quartz

The fact that Trump has none of the crucial experience in international diplomacy (or diplomacy of any kind) required to be president has never been far from public debate. But, with the prospect of an actual Trump presidency seeming so consistently unlikely, there’s been little attention given to the actual consequences.

In this piece for Quartz, a former Marine Corps officer (who served in Iraq from 2005-2008) explores and condemns this possibility drawing from his real-world experience of conflict. Though he fully acknowledges the various flaws of Clinton, Cusack implores people — his friends and family included — to understand exactly what a vote for Trump could mean.

“What they don’t see is how tenuous it all is. I’ve spent my life since Iraq in and out of conflict zones and fragile states. I’ve seen educated, wealthy communities descend overnight into ethnic cleansing. I’ve seen family men turned into butchers. I’ve seen a charismatic reformed warlord, surrounded by capable technical advisors, steer his country irretrievably into the abyss.”

“Our choice of leaders matters. Our respect for institutions matters. Trust in the democratic process matters. Freedom of the press matters. An independent judiciary matters. And it matters that America continues to believe itself a country that welcomes ‘your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free’.”

–

‘Hillary Clinton and the Populist Revolt’ – George Packer, The New Yorker

Though it has a fair few generalisations that run at odds with Smarsh’s piece for The Guardian, this big feature offers some good insight into the fracturing political ideologies of many in the white working class. Packer traces the politics of this group through history and tries to pinpoint the recent frustrations which have led to disenfranchisement with party politics.

As this is The New Yorker, he also has incredible access and lands an interview with Hillary Clinton herself. It seems she’s well aware of these problems.

“If we don’t get this right, what we’re seeing with Trump now will just be the beginning,” she said. “Because when people feel that their government has failed them and the economy isn’t working for them, they are ripe for the kind of populist nationalist appeals that we’re hearing from Trump.” She went on, “Look, there will always be the naysayers and virulent haters on one side. And there will be the tone-deaf, unaware people” — she seemed to mean élitists — “on the other side. I get all that. But it really is important. And the Congress, I hope, will understand this. Because the games they have played on the Republican side brought them Donald Trump. And if they continue to play those games their party is going to be under tremendous pressure. But, more important than that, our country will be under pressure.”

–

‘Latina Hotel Workers Harness Force of Labor and of Politics in Las Vegas’ – Dan Barry, The New York Times

With so much focus given to the controversial candidates of this election, it can be easy to lose sight of those who will be ultimately affected by the vote. This piece by Dan Barry redirects that focus well. It comes from his ongoing series ‘This Land’ — a beautiful series of portraits which explore the people and places behind the daily news cycle.

Here, he follows the daily routine of Celia, a 57-year-old guest room attendant, hard worker and staunch unionist who works at a notable chain of hotels. No prizes for guessing which.

“She pulls into the employee parking lot of the gold hotel, set aglow now by the unsparing morning sun. Searching for a parking spot, she passes other women, many of them also in black and gray tunics, hurrying toward the service entrance.

“Soon she is heading for the same door, one more guest room attendant who wears a back brace while cleaning rooms for a presidential candidate whose name is on the bathrobes she stocks, on the empty wine bottles she collects, on her name tag.

“He will receive her labor, but not her vote.”

–

‘Why I Insist on Voting for Hillary’ – Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic

If you know any American citizens who are thinking about simply not voting out of protest, any Bernie bros who are voting for a third-party in defiance, or friends of friends who won’t stop posting about email scandals, this is the article to send to them today.

“I’m not ‘with her’.

“I’m with the Hispanics who won’t be insulted by the president if Hillary Clinton is elected, the Muslim Americans who won’t fear nakedly discriminatory religious tests, the African Americans who won’t be subject to Trump’s nationwide stop-and-frisk proposal, the journalists who won’t be targeted by Trump’s proposed tightening of libel law, and the women who don’t want a pussy-grabber in the Oval Office.

“I’m with every young conservative who believes in a principled version of the political philosophy and doesn’t want it hijacked by protectionists and white nationalists.

“I’m with the NATO allies that want to count on America’s word, and every person on earth who’ll sleep easier on November 9 knowing Trump’s finger won’t be on the button.

“This is not a drill.”

–

Feature image from ‘Gunshow’ by KC Green.