Since my last note things have not gone as expected. Hell, a couple weeks before the election we published an article called “In the Bag.”

I’ve been poking fun at Micah Uetricht for that piece ever since, but I certainly agreed at the time. The next decade seemed clear: Hillary Clinton’s centrism may not have been enough to defeat Trumpism in the long haul, but it should have at least beat Trump in November. In the meantime, the Left could challenge her and offer new alternatives to liberalism. We thought we had plenty of time to build on the momentum of the Sanders campaign and the hollowness of Clinton’s.

Instead, we got the Donald. In a way, we shouldn’t be surprised. Jacobin spent months talking about the Democrats’ bankrupt policies, how millions felt left behind, and why the Clinton establishment’s mix of socially inclusive rhetoric and neoliberal economics was a weak response to Trump’s xenophobic populism. Still, he seemed just too buffoonish and too unpopular to win.