Vi Hart's Take on the 2016 Election

It looks very much as though I was wrong.  Repeating my standard warning not to jump on any bandwagon without suitable thought, I have to say that the analysis of Vi Hart, a young musician, commentator, mathematician, and Net personality, is very convincing, an worthy of considering.  Her article can be found here, or watched here.  She tries to understand the election in terms of a generational divide.  [Added later: In my opinion this, too, is somewhat of a simplification, and I explain after the break.]

Put that way, it does seem as though it was the older voters who voted for Trump, for various reasons, because they did not grow up in a world with Global Warming, they did not grow up in a world where the environment was a problem (and who did row up in a world where white males had a complete dominance over society).  What Trump was saying made a lot of sense to them, because he simply denied those problems, and expressed his opposition or hostility to various conditions that are new to the older generation, and simply facts to the younger.

Apparently the younger generations voted for Hillary Clinton.  They understood the complexities of the issues, and had their thinking in place (most of them), and while grandpa and grandma were rejoicing in the company of others who were turning a blind eye to the new America, they knew that only Hillary had plans for dealing with reality.

Always compassionate, Vi Hart describes her theory in terms anyone can understand.  (She is a great original in many ways, and her delivery is always dramatic.  For the older reader, I recommend the print version.)

If she is right, it seems as though there is hope, because any election won by an aged demographic is doomed in obvious ways.  These septuagenarians may survive another four years, but if Trump overplays his hand, and if we take Vi Hart's suggestion that we engage with the older generation in order to explain the science and the logic of what has taken place over the last few decades to our seniors, and present it in less threatening fashion, we could change how things go.  Unfortunately, Hillary Clinton may not be willing to run again, four years from now; and if she did, she may not have the energy to work with whatever ruins Trump may leave her.  (Of course, we can't expect any understanding of Entropy from Trump, let alone any remorse for being its agent.)

However, having said that, despite Vi Hart's careful statistical analysis, I have anecdotal evidence that a significant number of younger voters also voted for Trump.  I don't know how typical they were, but they were from conservative families, they were business-oriented, they were unhappy at the US evidently being thrown around by terrorists (and unwilling to accept that the US itself was partially responsible for that state of affairs), and, unfortunately, a little too easily convinced by the media (and those extensions of the media, namely the set of half-a-dozen or so spin doctors who were the Republican presidential candidates, with their twisted stories about how dishonest the Democrats were).

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