With Donald Trump winning the presidency, the popular vote, the Senate, and the House, in what The New York Times has described as a “crushing electoral rebuke” of the Democrats, there is a lot of soul-searching going on in the party. Our guest on the program today tried to warn the Democrats in his previous book. He says the progressive moment in American politics is now over — and the Democrats are going to have to face that fact if they want to win again.

Ruy Teixeira is a cofounder and politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter on Substack and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book, with John B. Judis, is Where Have All the Democrats Gone? The Soul of the Party in the Age of Extremes. Ruy Teixeira is our guest today, in this special bonus episode.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

In 2016, the election of Donald Trump took the mainstream media by surprise, with many in the press struggling to understand his rise to power and the factors driving it. Now, in the wake of Donald Trump’s decisive win, here we are again. My guest on today’s program suspected we might be missing the story, and just days before the election, published a brilliant podcast episode unpacking the comeback of Donald Trump.

Andy Mills is an award-winning American reporter and podcast producer, and co-creator of The Daily at The New York Times and The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling at The Free Press. He’s now the host of the Reflector podcast.

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com

Since last week’s election win for Donald Trump, we are seeing a renewed sense of scorn for Republican voters in parts of the mainstream media. The Guardian’s Rebecca Solnit, for example, writes in her column that “our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do.” My guest on today’s program doesn’t see it that way. She’s a lefty Democrat who moved from Park Slope, Brooklyn, to Trump country — and she writes that the gift of living in a rural county is that “I keep finding reasons to see my political adversaries as human.”

Larissa Phillips runs the Honey Hollow farm in upstate New York. She’s the founder of the Volunteer Literacy Project, and her essay for The Free Press is, “Whatever Happens, Love Thy Neighbor.”

You can find Tara Henley on Twitter at @TaraRHenley, and on Substack at tarahenley.substack.com