2016 Postmortem

The anti-establishment tirades and talk of "rigged systems" was a move that stoked populist anger but offered few if any practicable answers. We heard Trump invoke Sanders' anti-establishment bromides repeatedly in the last month of the election, by name. Same isolationist positions on trade and foreign policy, same questioning of Clinton's "judgment," same vagueness and undirected anger.

A misdirected antigovernment sentiment and a disdain for "elitists" (meaning what? experience and expertise?) was brewing under the current of the electorate, and it was stoked by both Sanders and Trump. It's a dangerous thing. And we are reaping the rewards of it.

Same is happening across Europe and in other parts of the world. We're in for a rough time. But liberals and progressives can not fall victim to demagogic populism. We can't abandon our idea that government is the answer, not the problem, even if it is always in need of perfecting; that we live in a connected world, where all people, working together, have values and needs, be they diverse and complex in nature; that simplistic economic answers are not the whole story; that the world is changing, and we need to adapt to those changes, difficult as that may be. That slogans are no substitute for real policy and real work--policies and work that are achievable and move us forward as a nation, even if by tiny steps.