Rebecca Traister, “Elizabeth Warren Is Waging a Full-Body Fight to Defeat Trump”:

The problem is that it was the assured predictions, the 85 percent chance of victory, the promises of inevitability, that landed us in this fucking mess to begin with. It will be tempting to have a million conversations over the next few years in which we stroke our chins and ask wise questions about Elizabeth Warren’s chances. Those who are used to being called upon as consultants and political gurus will wonder, like Beltway Carrie Bradshaws, whether America is ready for a female president. Experts will run the numbers, talk to focus groups, tally up the probabilities, and churn through the losses we’ve already sustained. They’ll tell us to stay safe and center, or to bank left because that’s the trend, or that Warren isn’t left enough to be on trend. They’ll argue about whether the way to win is to attack Trump or talk health care. Some will contend that turning to another woman — another older white blonde who can be portrayed as imperious and shrill — will mean doom; others will insist she’s our only hope.

But the fact is that none of us — not one of the people who’s going to try to answer this question with authority — actually knows what’s possible, what’s impossible, what’s going to happen next. Because everything is different now. We are different too.