We have Americans who are voting for someone in whom they have confidence, about whom they have hope, because at after the election 2016 whoever wins is going to have to govern. And when you look at the tenor of this campaign, and when you look at the way people feel about these candidates and how partisan our country is for starters, how does the winner govern? I mean that's the real, real problem.
Frank BruniI think the media has to continually remind itself, and I think we do but sometimes not well enough that we're not just an economic property.
Frank BruniI remember going to a Trump rally in South Carolina, and it was really important and it was really interesting to talk to the people who'd shown up there because they were not caricatures, and so often Trump voters, Trump supporters were being portrayed in the media, probably I'm guilty of it as well, as caricatures. Each of these people, and I talked to maybe a dozen of them, had a very particular reason why he or she was supporting Donald Trump , but these were not casual, inexplicable decisions.
Frank BruniI think what we journalists too often do is we assume the status quo is unchangeable. I think all sorts of issues of political reform, electoral reform need more discussion than they get.
Frank BruniI do think we're in a little bit of a bubble and I think you saw it this year primarily in the fact that everyone was surprised by Donald Trump's success. He was saying things and he was tapping into feelings and resentments in the electorate that the media was almost completely blindsided by. And that suggests we are not spending enough time talking to people out there who are living the lives and feeling the problems that led them to Donald Trump.
Frank Bruni