“In ten days,” I said, “the United States will have elected its first woman president. The question at that moment will be whether the hate and division that surfaced during the 2016 campaign will be remembered as a last gasp of a defeated populace, clinging desperately to the old order they once ruled as it was swept away, or the beginning of a recalcitrant movement against American democratic pluralism.” Most members of the audience applauded with the same smug certainty that I was showing.

