Good morning!

I really didn't want to get out of bed today, but I saw a question from a former colleague, John Palfrey, who is now the headmaster at Phillips Academy, and that got me up, and thinking. He was looking for suggestions on what to say to his students this morning. 

Last night I was talking on the phone and via chat with two young people, about the age of his students, who I am close to. They looked to me to help them process this. Both are sweet earnest people, who want to do good, and have a great deal of empathy and intelligence. The best I could come up with is this: The world is basically always tottering on the edge of catastrophe. Sometimes you can see it, other times it's hidden. Clearly the last few years have been a lot more dangerous than we've appreciated. So the best thing to do is to do the most good you can, for others and for yourself, and enjoy life the best you can. An older friend said that to me many years ago, when I was their age.

It's not like anyone gets out of this alive (one of my favorite lines for dire situations). 

I of course have read much of what has been written about last night's event, and the story that left the greatest impression so far is Maureen Dowd's column in the NY Times. She talked with her brother, who lives in Maryland, who voted for Trump. He explained why he voted for him, and it was an eye-opener. Basically "I was tired of the Clintons." Tired  probably isn't a strong enough word. 

A couple of thoughts about that. 

The voters of Indiana similarly rejected Evan Bayh, an ex-Senator of theirs. At first he was thought to be a shoe-in, much as Hillary was, but eventually the voters decided they didn't want to go back, and chose the devil they don't know over the one they are tired of. 

Second thought, and this really shook me -- I voted for George W. Bush in 2000 for the very same reason. I was exhausted by eight years of Clinton. As much as the scandals were Republican inventions, the way Clinton handled it really pissed me off. And the lack of respect for the institution of the Presidency. The image of him getting a blow job in the Oval Office was something I would expect to read in Penthouse letters, not in the Washington Post and the New York Times. 

I know HIllary is not Bill, that's why I was a fervent supporter of hers, but I know the feeling. It wasn't just the Lewinsky affair and the lies about it that got me, it was also his signing of the Communication Decency Act. The willingness to cut corners, to stand for nothing. So I voted for Bush, and lived to regret it. By 2004, I was working for Kerry. 

If I had to do it over again, there's no question that I would vote for Al Gore. These kinds of tradeoffs are no good. You always vote for the most intelligent and principled person you can for a job like president. You don't use your vote for president to "send a message." It's too important. That's how you get presidents like Bush and now Trump.

What will happen now? A lot of sleazy awful people will be leading our country. I thought we were done with all the Trump surrogates, but it's just beginning. Now MSNBC won't have a choice but to give them airtime, they will be the executive branch of the United States. But they had a choice the last few months. They could have devoted time on each show to getting expert opinions on what a Trump presidency would be like. Might have shaken a few of the third-party voters into voting for Hillary and we'd be facing a different, better reality this morning. Even if it didn't, as they say, you had one job to do and you didn't do it. The journalist's job, as they seem to have forgotten, is to provide their users with information about the events of the day. That doesn't just include the salacious and mockable rantings of a TV reality star playing the part of presidential candidate, they must give a voice to and represent the interests of the people who would be governed by such a person. They did not in any way do that. 

I think this is the final straw, the one that finally broke the back of American journalism. They really did this number on us. They could have made sure the Comey letter didn't get the play it didn't deserve. Didn't make it out to be what it obviously was, a small part of the government putting its finger on the scale for one candidate. That was the story, and that clearly was the turning point for the campaign. Hillary didn't run a great campaign, but it was starting to get great. Instead all the energy transferred to Trump. He found his bearing, and campaigned like a champ for the last week and a half of the campaign. I don't think he would have won if he hadn't gotten that injection of purpose. 

Of course the press supported Trump through the entire campaign, the same way they kept reminding us in 2000 what a jerk Gore is, even though the stories they kept repeating were garbage, not true, or trivial, insignificant. They kept telling us Hillary has trust issues. How do they know? Well we keep saying it, it must be true. In fact, and they knew she was a very trustworthy candidate. And probably would have been a great president. We were cheated, and we know who cheated us. 

I know this piece isn't well-organized. My thoughts this morning are not well-organized. I'm going to publish it anyway.

Update: Here's what Palfrey said to his students.