So the liberal bubble conversation isn't the conversation I want to be having either, because I don't live in one of the blue islands, though I live adjacent to one. I'm most certainly not in a bubble unless it's a bubble with a population of one, and I didn't see this coming either.

Here's the conversation I wish we were having: I voted for Clinton in the primary, despite being a socialist myself, because I figured the best chance of avoiding a Republican presidency was to go with the blue dog, because she should have been inoffensive to anyone on the right not foaming at the mouth and those of us to her left are voting defensively anyway. Then, like francopoli, I start hearing people with rebel flags on their trucks saying they kinda liked Sanders, but they hate Clinton because emails and her husband got a blowjob once in the 90s and whargarble. And I wrote that off during silly season because those guys have to be outliers and she's running against the comic relief so she's pretty much a sure thing, right? Then the comic relief won, and I'm talking about Marx with the guys with the rebel flags and loaning surveys of anarchism to a preacher who's taken an interest in Tolstoy and I'm wondering if we, coastal elites and upper middle class professional rednecks alike, missed a turn somewhere and the way to win is to be more radical rather than make concessions to the right. So that's the conversation I wish we were having, because in my little unenlightened corner of the world it seems like people are open to the far left or the far right, but not to the center.