It is the natural question to ask on the night before the election. The emotional answer is that I want the Republicans to do better than the polls predict. Humans naturally see the world as us vs them and while Trump doesn't fit very well in my picture of us, the Democrats are pretty clearly them.





My rational answer, as before the previous election, is that I prefer a divided government, since things the government does are likely to make the world worse, not better. The polls suggest that the Democrats will end up in control of the House, the Republicans of the Senate. That means nothing will happen unless both sides agree to it, which at the moment does not seem likely. So it is probably the least bad outcome.





But I can't help remembering the story of someone explaining American politics to a group of visiting Russians: