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1. The most recent issue of New York, its last before the election, was dedicated to considering the new Republican Party. Gabriel Sherman covered the last days of the Trump campaign. Frank Rich looked to Charles Lindbergh to see how history views nationalistic populists, and Jonathan Chait mulled the future of the GOP. Though most of the issue — and most of our readers — assumed that Hillary Clinton was about to be the next president, the issue still foreshadowed some of what was to come, particularly Nick Tabor’s interviews with Republican women on why they supported Donald Trump (“They’re With Him,” October 31–November 13). Commenters felt the women well represented Trump’s constituency. “It’s very hard to ignore that every one of the women photographed for this piece are white. This is Trump’s female base — white women who do not come off as well-educated, who don’t speak about the glaring racism of Trump’s campaign, and who don’t regularly watch or read the news. It’s just sad,” wrote ndandrea01. “Oh my god, we’re doomed,” wrote Loreoeo. “Don’t read? Don’t care about what he said 11 years ago, or last week? Doesn’t matter?” Dangleparticiple felt that gun ownership might be a larger issue than any of the women stated. “The GOP has done a wonderful job of making its base believe that Dems are going to personally come into their homes and remove their legally owned firearms. And for some women, that’s what they respond to.” Commenter greeninla pointed out that support for Trump seemed to be rooted in emotions: “Clearly there’s no logic at play with any of these answers. For some people it’s a visceral thing the way they respond to a politician that has absolutely nothing to do with facts on the table. They just don’t like Hillary … The rest of us need to be asking ourselves on the left what can be done about this going forward, because win or lose, these folks are here to stay.” Many more commenters just felt disturbed by the division of our country. “Can’t stop thinking about how polarized things are,” tweeted @theresaavila. “Thanks, NYMag for this,” tweeted Countable’s Sarah Mimms. “Please put it on my tombstone when this election inevitably kills me.”
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2. Jonathan Chait’s essay on the future of the Republican Party and its evolution toward an authoritarian identity also stirred deep reactions in readers (“The GOP’s Age of Authoritarianism Has Only Just Begun,” October 31–November 13). Commenter davidroddis recalled an earlier, less-polarized conservatism: “I’m old enough to remember conservatives who still shared core values with liberals. Conservative men and women, both American and Canadian, educated, intelligent people who you could vote for in good conscience, whose names you could mention without a bray of nervous laughter, and who behaved with civility.” Davidroddis took issue, though, with Chait’s characterization of Stephen Harper as counting among that cohort. “He was no old-style conservative. He started as a member of the Reform Party, our more polite version of the Tea Party.” Shadi Hamid felt Chait’s assessment spelled the death of liberalism. “Even if Trump loses,” he tweeted a week before the election, “GOP will probably be an ethnonationalist party for the rest of our lives … I don’t know if center-left managerial technocracy is much match for the passions of ideology, religion, or ethnonationalism.” After the election, many readers looking for an explanation for Trump’s surprise win returned to Chait’s article. As @pacpobric tweeted: “On this dark day, it’s worth revisiting Jonathan Chait’s prescient and frightening preview of things to come.”
3. “In my experience,” wrote Liz Meriwether in her column on women’s responses to getting groped by men, “this is the way that women tell these stories to other women — with gallows humor, with muted anger, with a kind of world-weariness that suggests that we’ve learned to let it all roll off us” (“Grope-tober,” October 31–November 13). “Trump did something valuable for women,” responded @seriouslyhilary. “He made men realize how often women get grabbed by the pussy.” Commenter Tikidoc agreed there was great value in sharing with men personal experiences of being groped. “Men who don’t do this kind of thing are finally being made aware of the frequency of these assaults, and how they affect women. I had a similar conversation with my dad recently, in which I discussed some of the more memorable gropes and episodes of harassment that I have experienced, and my dad was floored. He had no idea. But unless we involve men in the conversations, things will never change. The level of discomfort that men feel hearing about our experiences pales in comparison to the level of discomfort we feel actually experiencing them.” Many women thanked Meriwether for putting into words something they had felt themselves. “Oh man, this hits too close to home,” wrote mexarico. “Saturday evening was spent having dinner with some girlfriends laughing hysterically as my sister and I told the story of an attempted rape. I remember thinking on the drive home how weird it must have been for tables around us to hear that story and how it really wasn’t a laughing matter.” Twitter user @amelia_faith agreed: “I have many stories about being groped. If I got mad about each I would waste my life in anger. So yep, I laugh.”