Born in 2016

If you were born in 2016, you arrived in the year that broke the political consensus of the previous generation. Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in November in an election that the entire polling industry had predicted with confidence would go the other way. The electoral map looked familiar—the coasts blue, the heartland red—but the margins were different, and Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin flipped.

The grief and shock on one side and the joy and vindication on the other were both visceral. The Brexit vote in Britain in June had been the first signal that something was moving. The year was marked throughout by racial violence and its responses—Philando Castile shot during a traffic stop, Alton Sterling shot in Baton Rouge, five Dallas police officers killed by a sniper at a protest.

The Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in June killed forty-nine people. *Moonlight* won the Oscars in a ceremony remembered for the La La Land mix-up. Beyoncé's *Lemonade* was an event beyond music.

David Bowie and Prince died within months of each other and the cultural loss was staggering. Hamilton tickets were impossible to get. The Cubs won the World Series for the first time in 108 years and the city of Chicago was beautiful about it.

The country was at a crossroads, though people disagreed about which direction was forward.