Election 2016 — Looking Forward

Erik Oliver
Aug 23, 2017 · 1 min read

(this was sitting in my queue back on Nov 12, but I somehow never hit “publish” it still seems to make a lot of sense so I’m publishing it now.)

I am by no means as eloquent as Elizabeth Warren (“President-Elect Donald Trump”), Ezra Klein (“The hard question isn’t why Clinton lost it’s why Trump won?”), or Emmit Rensin (“The smug style in American liberalism”) among many who have written. But in processing my own feelings about this election I want to talk about looking forward particularly as a liberal in general…

We just don’t know what to expect exactly

For example, building the wall and ending Obamacare were hallmarks of Trump’s presidential campaign. However, already today’s New York Times and WSJ indicate that parts of Obamacare will be kept. Similarly, after disdaining lobbyists and Washington insiders, his transition team now has a number of them.

So, we need to watch and respond to the actual policies he decides to implement rather than shadow boxing what he said at some point or the trial balloons of potential cabinet members.

Stop making everything calamity

I’m not going to claim that everything is going to just be “ok”. Or that you need to “just calm down”.

But if liberals portray every action as a calamity it becomes a “boy who cried wolf” problem — we set up such a parade of horribles that may not pass and if they don’t we lose credibility.

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