I watched the returns of the 2016 election last night and was as surprised as any pundit or pollster at the outcome. I looked at the spreads on realclearpolitics.com and fivethirtyeight.com like lots of others watching the horse race we call an election. And given the track record of sites like this in the past, I figured that with the amount of polling done, these professionals had a pretty good handle on things. I don't think that this qualifies as a Black Swan event, but it does make me question the validity of models that pollsters apply to their raw numbers to adjust them for "Likely Voters" or "Registered Voters." The so-called "numbers guys" were way off base in their predictions and tried to justify it with narrative after the fact. It's not that nobody saw this coming. I'm guessing that anyone that attended a Trump rally had a pretty good feeling about their guy, as all true believers do.
JD Vance, in his book that came out this summer, "Hillbilly Elegy" laid out an argument that I've been making for years and one that applies throughout history for different civilizations. The argument is that in the United States, the real divide in the country is between urban and rural parts of society, with the suburbs being the swing areas. Both urban and rural areas have economic stratification and it's probably even more pronounced in urban areas. The economics between the two probably doesn't really differ all that much, even though it seems it should. Our urban areas tend to be more culturally liberal because people run into other people that look different than themselves, that sound different than themselves, that worship different than themselves, that eat different than themselves and they can all get along and be friends even with their differences. In rural areas, it's rare to run into someone that different than you, that grew up in a background or environment different than you, so it's easy to dehumanize people different than you because you don't know anyone different than you. Therefore it's easier to call for purity of culture, language, race because you're not offending anyone that you personally know, that you might be friends with.
In a different context, the 14th Century Muslim scholar, Ibn-Khaldun, came up with a theory of social conflict and cohesion that aimed to explain how Islamic empires rose and fell. It started with nomadic peoples, held together by kinship and sometimes religious fervor. These nomadic peoples were fiercely loyal to one another and were able to conquer empires and later assume power themselves. However once people achieved power and their empires grew bigger, their desires for finer things, like art, literature, and their general desire for comfort helped to dissolve that initial cohesion that brought them to power. Eventually, a newer, younger barbarian group with stronger cohesion would take over and the process would start over. It seems like an apt explanation for what we've seen transpire in the US.
In modern societies, these cycles are more volatile and change happens more quickly. I won't read too much into this particular election other than the fact that there is a significant part of the US population that feels like it's been left behind by all those in power - government, big business, and maybe even their churches. Their standard of living has stagnated for decades. Jobs have gone away (and despite what some may think, those same jobs aren't coming back). Small towns are dying with their infrastructure falling apart and many of the young people are leaving. Donald Trump has proved a useful messenger to those in the establishment that people are feeling pain, even if he comes across as an abhorrent individual. What matters most is that he does not appear to be part of the establishment and his boorish language is the proof that his supporters need that he not just another politician. Donald Trump is serving as a symbol for a large part of the American populace to coalesce around. We don't have a William Jennings Bryan populist fighting against the political machine. If we did, maybe that guy could have won instead, but Ross Perot never did get over the hump a generation ago. Or maybe he wouldn't have made it through the primaries, a la Bernie Sanders. These populists have appealed to large portions of the American populace, but have only ever come out on top when the symbol of the person was also exceptional - usually a former military person. Trump is unique in that regard. He has won despite being a most imperfect representative of populist angst.
If the Democrats could have recruited someone like Elizabeth Warren to run this time around, I think the result could've been much different. She is a symbol of economic populism. She is relatively new to the national scene. She was seen by the people excoriating the big banks that got bailed out and standing up for the people that didn't get bailed out by the federal government. Plus, and perhaps most importantly, she didn't have the baggage of being Hillary Clinton.
