In 2016, ignorant voters were reviled like never before. However, the entire political-media system floundered badly. Never before had American voters been obliged to choose between two such widely despised candidates. A few months before the election, an Associated Press poll "found that 86 percent of Americans were angry or dissatisfied with the state of politics in the nation." Routine deceit by both candidates helped make "post-truth" the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2016.

Many Americans were riled early on because one party preempted voters from selecting their preferred candidate. The Democratic Party leadership decided in 2015 or earlier to award its presidential nomination to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; a large block of "super delegates" chosen by party elites instead of voters helped ensure that result. In July 2016, WikiLeaks released the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee, exposing how the Democratic Party "fixed" its primaries and procedures to ensure that Clinton would be the nominee — even though she was under FBI criminal investigation at the time. After the emails were released, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz resigned and was promptly appointed honorary chair of the Clinton campaign.