Hillary Clinton lost an election, but we lost a nation.

There is a vast body of analysis on why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.  It gives scant comfort to know that Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes.  She won  48.2 percent of the vote to Trump's 46.1 percent.  However, Trump won the electoral college with 304 votes to Clinton's 227.  The electoral college severely contradicts the popular vote.  But all this analysis does not answer the question of why, after the honesty and decency in the White House of the Obamas, so many people would choose a seething glob of corruption like Donald Trump.

There is also a hefty body of explanations about how Trump won.  Most of it examines what the candidates did, but it tends to assume that candidates are the sole determiners of election outcomes.  We talk much about holding candidates accountable, but shy away from holding voters accountable for their decisions.  Those who believe that America strives for freedom, equality, and justice for all must face the fact that 42 percent of their fellow Americans do not share those values.  Studies, in fact, shows that the most important factor behind Trump's election to the presidency is his appeal to prejudice.  Those people who voted for Trump because he affirms their prejudice and bigotry are often demeaned by him.  Talk show host Howard Stern notes "The people Trump despises most love him the most."

America is not the nation that is characterized by the Greatest Generation.  Trump represents a nation that values his constant lying, his financial deceptions, his false slanders and libels against political opponents, and his vile personal behavior because he endorses their anti-American hatred and bigotry.  The America Trump represents is not the America that once was a powerful voice for the democratic values of freedom for all, for equality, and for justice for all.  And the differing attitude for those values is what defines the political divide in the nation.  A significant portion of the American people denies the values that once defined the aspirations of American democracy.  It denies science and clings to its hatreds.   

This election is not merely choosing between Trump and Biden. It is a choice between Oceania, the oppressive nation described by George Orwell in 1984, and the United States we once dreamed about.