You do have this circumstance in Karachi that because people know things are changing, the stakes are higher. Everyone is thinking, "My home is threatened, my job is threatened, my identity is threatened, my world is threatened." And that creates a very particular sort of climate, that is linked.

We have 31 Republican governors in this country. We have roughly the same number of Republican legislatures.

We have 24 states where Republicans run both of them. But in terms of a liberal project that people feel they can sign on to, that feels that it speaks to everyone in the country, that speaks to what we share and the principles we hold, Republicans have developed a message for all of that, you know?

People who want a different Pakistan have to find a way to go back into their own past and revive the vision of their founders, that was clearly a tolerant and diverse one, so that they can distinguish it from the one that has been imposed upon it. If they can do that, they can take back this city and their country.

Many Democrats are in a reflective mood . They lost the White House this year [2016], which would not matter as much as it does, except they also failed to take back the Senate, remain out of power in the House and are out of power in most states.

Those are the liberals who don't want to win. Those are the liberals who are in love with noble defeats, and I'm sick and tired of noble defeats.

I see parallels between Karachi and the cities that I was familiar with: a very different place, but in terms of its human stories not really very different at all. That was what excited me about the place - that it was so complex, as difficult to me as an outsider and yet so human in a way that was ultimately very familiar.