Eight years ago, with the American election reaching fever pitch, no one truly believed that Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton. I certainly didn’t. But then the Clinton team decided to publish her playlist –
(I’m embarrassed just to type that). In one flash, I knew that Trump would win. Not because Clinton’s playlist was lame, obvious, safe, uninspiring … I’m not judging her taste in music, or lack thereof, nor would I count myself qualified to do so. I knew instantly she would lose because it was so clear that no one on earth would ever want to see her playlist. Let alone listen to it. No one on earth would want to know that such a playlist existed, much less care a raspberry fuck what was in it, what genre, what generation, what anything. For all the negative feelings I may have entertained concerning Trump’s personality, moral and ethical nature, honesty, decency etc., etc., I had to confess that I was fascinated to know what might be in his playlist. For all I knew, it could be polka music, soft rock, clawhammer bluegrass, death metal, light classical, Nu-folk, Tesco1, psychedelic funk, Tijuana brass. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was interested. And I knew with a certainty that might be regarded as deeply arrogant that my belief – that a Hillary Clinton playlist was among the least interesting ideas ever proposed – would be a belief shared by most people, whatever their political leanings. It’s not fair on Hillary Clinton that this should be the case, but the case is what it is. We smell it at once. Hillary Clinton’s playlist? No. Therefore, somehow, Hillary no.
Statistics and group theory can take us a long way, but smell takes us further.
Stephen Fry, “The One and the Many”, The Fry Corner, 2024-02-02.
1. Tesco, as a branch of dance music, does, or at last briefly did, exist. It’s a blend of techno and disco. You knew that.
May 4, 2024
QotD: Why Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton
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