First, a mea culpa. Most of the conversations we’ve brought you since we started this podcast many months ago have been premised on the assumption that while Donald Trump was a heavy favorite to win the Republican Party’s nomination, he was a nearly prohibitive underdog in the general election. Those assumptions were based on both polling data which were near-unanimous across firms that Hillary Clinton was never behind in this race; and on very widely accepted demographic assessments of the Democratic and Republican parties. Both bases were wrong. He won, and for being wrong, we’re sorry.
Still, our warnings about the dangers of his presidency stand. If you’re feeling uncertain about how the country will be run or what will change about it, you have very good reasons.
To offer insight into what happened we welcomed Sean Trende, Senior Elections Analyst Real Clear Politics, back to the show. He was the first political analyst to posit the existence of a large enough latent population of disaffected whites to elect Republicans nationally, without making major inroads with minority constituencies.
As for what’s to come after inauguration? Todd Zwillich, Washington correspondent of WNYC’s The Takeaway joins us to imagine life under unified Republican rule with Trump at the helm.
Further reading: