--- title: America’s Elections Are Ruining America description: America’s elections are ruining America, the world is facing a playground deficit and more. canonical: https://time.com/4573083/americas-elections-are-ruining-america/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-16T17:00:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:19.615Z article:section: Ideas og:title: America's Elections are Ruining America og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4573083/americas-elections-are-ruining-america/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: America's Elections are Ruining America twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # America's Elections Are Ruining America by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Nov 16, 2016 5:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Nov 16, 2016 5:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**America’s elections are ruining America.**](http://theweek.com/articles/661845/how-americas-elections-are-ruining-america) By Michael Brendan Dougherty in the Week **2\.** [**The world is facing a playground deficit.**](https://howwegettonext.com/the-world-has-a-playground-deficit-8f6678ebc83c#.nx0eyr7gm) By Christine Ro in How We Get To Next **3\.** [**This school district dumped textbooks and bought laptops.**](http://hechingerreport.org/why-one-mississippi-district-ditched-textbooks-for-laptops/) By Jackie Mader in the Hechinger Report **4\.** [**Is clean energy dead under a climate change-skeptical presidency? Not so fast.**](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/trump-victory-wont-halt-the-us-clean-energy-boom/article32832967/) By Dan Woynillowicz and Merran Smith in the Globe and Mail **5\.** [**How does the dwindling social capital of millions of Americans explain last week’s election results?**](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-vinnakota/the-real-reason-for-trump%5Fb%5F12962616.html) By Rajiv Vinnakota in Huffington Post  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4573083/americas-elections-are-ruining-america/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4573083/americas-elections-are-ruining-america/"},"headline":"America's Elections Are Ruining America","datePublished":"2016-11-16T17:00:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:19.615Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4573083/americas-elections-are-ruining-america/","keywords":["Innovation","climate change","Education","elections"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4573083/americas-elections-are-ruining-america/","name":"America's Elections Are Ruining America"}}]}] ```