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Election results

Many voters believed that the major U.S. political parties offered them two disappointing choices for President this year.

Although their reasons for disparaging their options varied from voter to voter, a rough consensus emerged about the candidates’ relative riskiness. While one had served in public office for decades, the other had never done any government work. At least in terms of familiarity with the job, the first seemed safe, the other risky.

But in the Electoral College, the “safe” one lost, and the “risky” one prevailed.

Why?

You’ll have many thoughts on how to answer that question. You can find plenty of opinions anywhere you look.

But as a trial lawyer, I have a particular interest in one possible, if partial, explanation:

Does a cognitive tendency in our brains push us towards risk (or perhaps away from it) when we face a set of alternatives that we perceive as negative?
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