EARLIER THIS YEAR, the small Long Island town where I live—a seaside village of a few thousand people—held its municipal election. The choice was between a party that favored development and another that opposed it, and the lead-up to the vote was tense. Leaflets flooded mailboxes. Signs, bigger each week, sprouted on lawns. On Facebook, voters insulted the candidates and one another with frank exuberance; around dinner tables, talk was of the irreparable damage one party or the other would inflict on village life. “It really is a shame that every four years the Village has to deal with the smut and name calling that has seemingly become a tradition,” one party spokesperson lamented on Facebook. Perhaps, the spokesperson continued, this was symptomatic of a broader condition: elections across the…
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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 7, 2016