Jess Lahitou

Last night was the first chance American voters had to hand tangible results to 2016 presidential candidates.

So I don’t approve, in general, of how my generation tends to come at things, with the focus on: me, my experience, my

What’s the greatest achievement of the Rio Olympics? Is it the success of Latin America’s first host nation, Brazil? Is it the extraordinary feats of the US Women’s gymnastics team? Is it the spellbinding brilliance of Usain Bolt’s superhuman speed? Or is it perhaps the Twitter feed of Leslie Jones?

Rejoicing or weeping will depend on who you are, but let’s look at what happened either way.

Democrats:

The five 2016 Democratic candidates for President met in Las Vegas for their first debate last night, and this writer’s prediction is that the field will be down to three for the next matchup. (Barring Joe Biden’s entry into the race, which remains a distant possibility).

With Twitter awash in letters of goodbyes, 140-word final messages from “collateral damage,” my heart broke last night. That doesn’t mean anything, and neither does this: I want to say I’m sorry to Syria.

The blatant promise of a career in the spotlight has stripped the Bachelor/Bachelorette of its beautiful, benign lie: that we could watch “regular” people navigate the perils and pitfalls of modern dating, that such a quest was in and of itself enough, and that a happy ending was a real possibility.

You may find yourself wondering today, “Who is Steve Bannon?” Which as a fellow American, and just a human generally-speaking, I really wish were n

ICYMI, towards the close of last night’s final (handclap for that) presidential debate, Donald Trump lobbed an insult Clinton’s way.

All this means that, for the first time since 1992, a third-party candidate has a very strong chance of impacting election results. And if something truly wild were to happen (say, no candidate broke the 270-electoral vote mark needed to win the presidency), then there’s an outside chance that a third-party could actually win the White House.