It’s morning (or mourning, depending on your political leanings) in America, and the country is taking a good look at itself in the mirror. We may not know exactly what Donald Trump believes, or precisely what he will do. But we do know that he’s the greatest media savant of our lifetimes. He can feel what people want to hear and he delivers that message. This election told us a lot about what millions of people wanted to hear. Much of it worth listening to. Much of it horrific. So let’s take a look at issues from segregation, racism and hate, to the ignored working class whites and the all-powerful (and ever widening) economic divide: What the Hell Just Happened.

+ “There are many reasons for our troubles. But the deepest reason is inequality: the forms of political, cultural, and economic polarization that have been widening, not narrowing, for decades. Inequality, like slavery, is a chain that binds at both ends.” That is The New Yorker’s Jill Lepore who is one of sixteen writers who share their thoughts on Trump’s America.

+ “What they want is what my father-in-law had: steady, stable, full-time jobs that deliver a solid middle-class life to the 75% of Americans who don’t have a college degree. Trump promises that. I doubt he’ll deliver, but at least he understands what they need.” Joan C. Williams in the Harvard Business Review: What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class.

+ Frank Bruni in the NYT: The Democrats Screwed Up.

+ WaPo: Trump’s win may be just the beginning of a global populist wave. (Mavericks is a wave. This is a tsunami.)