The moment of truth arrives for the USC/L.A. Times tracking poll

Agreed. This is tiresome, somewhat depressing and a little bit worrisome since it has obviously enormous sway in the representation that people end up having of each candidate. It does give some credence to the claims made by "alternative" (to stay polite) news sources which constantly claim that the public narrative is "conditioned" by an establishmentarian elite.

If there is one takeaway from the Wikileaks Podesta emails, it is that such collusion is real. There must be better checks and balances to limit or "regulate" (I know some people on HN hates this word, but context is everything) this "fourth branch of power"'s reach. An ethical guide that journalism students have to learn in their first-year lectures is obviously not enough.

And this imbalance can only further worsen the situation. I don't see how the recent rise in white identity politics and the extreme degree of polarization this election has garnered will go away if the environment stays the same.

Ironically, when the left gave up actual marxism and egalitarianism for what is now often referred as "progressivism" they declared a war on "whiteness" (the broad concept). A quick look at the recent publications made by "Cultural studies", "White studies" or "Civilization history" at any public university will be telling. And now it seems that they have reached their objective, at least partially: modify society in such a way that the tenets of white cultural domination are questioned. Because whites are on the verge of becoming a majority-minority and that minorities political power has exploded through the past decade (via identity politics and mass media), they start to become aware or conscious about their own "race" (i.e an arbitrary ethno-racial category invented by the US Census Bureau)

In a way, contemporary progressivism is directly fueling the rise of white nationalism. Keep in mind that ideology was dead broke a mere two decades ago. Now the penduluum analogy seems to be very fitting and it is swinging back with violence indeed.

I do not know if this was expected or if that will come as a surprise to anyone. Because that is quite a natural and mechanical reaction to anyone that can put 2 and 2 together. Now that every politician is playing identity politics to attract minority vote, that a representation of society along ethno-racial lines has superceded one that used classes as its fundamental unit, I think we are going to see white identity politics catch-up real fast.

I have very mixed feeling about this. On one hand, I find that fair that if the game have changed, everyone gets to play by the same rules (i.e white gets their pseudo-racial interests represented... and leveraged) but this is terrible for America, and quite depressing.

Even more than that, I think this can be legitimately worrisome with regard to global stability. An under attack white nationalist movement with initially legitimate pretenses ("everyone gets their interests defended, time for us too") is bound to grow fast and have an international dimension.

My forecast is that Trump was the tip of the iceberg, a much nastier society is about to emerge from this mess. Identity politics is further alterity and racial consciousness. I don't see how anything could improve with the current political landscape (no one is innocent here) only pushes for further polarization.

And you can be certain that Jewish people will have to foot the bill, they match perfectly the requirement of a catalyst of violence for the respective "racial factions". When this situation reaches its climax in the next fifty years, it will be frightening. You can already see antisemitism among the African-American and Latino community be on the rise (it is, and almost always has been a component of most white nationalist movements).

This comment was depressing to write but those are my honest thoughts on the issue.