You Know You Love It

The candidates let you down. The media let you down. Those are two things people across the aisle seem to agree on “with more than eight in 10 voters saying the campaign has left them repulsed rather than excited.” Indeed, our journey through this election season reads like a modern day rewrite of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with the current mood of the American electorate being aptly described by Kurtz’s final words: “The horror! The horror!” (Trump’s spelling may vary.) From the NYT: Voters Express Disgust Over U.S. Politics.

+ The Guardian: Pain, anger and fear: US voters deprived of a serious presidential election.

+ Consider this from Vox: “Network newscasts have, remarkably, dedicated more airtime to coverage of Clinton’s emails than to all policy issues combined.”

+ On the plus side, the next President will enter the Oval Office with remarkably low expectations.

+ Yes, the election let you down. But you loved it. You couldn’t get enough. The race dominated your dinner parties and your social media streams. Pageviews on political and news sites went through the roof. Cable news channels saw increased revenues. Even the parodies of the farce got a ratings boost, as the campaigns and debates put the bite back into Saturday Night Live. You say you hate it, but you watched this election like it was a less politically-correct version of Game of Thrones. So here’s a spoiler alert. After Tuesday, you can expect more of the same.