The citadels of democracy were stormed and temporarily conquered by swindlers and cheap con artists. The people sent a message. And it packed a wallop.

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Probably it’s too soon to try to look past this moment of horribilitude. Or maybe it’s the right time. But there are some things we need to start talking about.

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The subtext of Trumpism is what is now apparent: America is a permanently changed economy. And, no, Hillary Clinton wasn’t really addressing this comprehensively, either. Just as Trump wasn’t ever really going to take us triumphantly back into the coal mine, Clinton wasn’t going to make us all well-paid disruptive gig-economy entrepreneurs. The real disrupters haven’t been the plucky geeks. They’ve been the wealthy, who have vacuumed up all the profits in the game of getting everybody else to bid each other’s wages into stagnation, while we await the next generation of super-smart robots to come finish the job.

Each political party has a role to play here. The Republicans can stop spoon-feeding the rich and trying to fool everyone into thinking that economic insecurity is the best freedom. The Democrats can stop their intramural ideology contests and realize that both wings of the party have something important to say, and they better get their act together and start winning, unless they really do want to be led back into the coal mines, or salt mines.

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There is important work to be done to find a place for dignified human existence in a hyper-automated future economy. There is important work to be done repairing our broken environment. There is important work to be done to rebuild politics to represent Americans’ actual needs and interests so that voters aren’t led down dangerous, fraudulent dead-ends named Donald Trump. We’ve had a good look now at what that’s like.