One of the things that really has gone wrong in modern politics, one of the things that made Trump possible was that many people have a view of politics as something dramatic and exciting and thrilling and emotional.

A novel makes it possible to understand not just events, but the people who control the events; not only their choices, but also their motives.

One of the things we're all going to have to discover, establishment is just an abusive term for institutions. It's institutions that keep us free.

Donald Trump doesn't believe in much, doesn't want to do much.

We all have more at stake in the rules of the game than we do in the outcomes of the game. When that changes, that's when you begin to lose democracy.

Trump is not just unlike a Republican, he's unlike a presidential candidate. The whole elaborate presidential process is designed to screen out people like Donald Trump. And that process broke down in ways quite unlike anything in the recent experience of the United States.

I am not a person of the left. But one of the things, the central idea of democracy is that you have a bigger investment in the system as a whole than you do in any particular outcome.