Donald Trump is in office. It's not just another Republican candidate - Donald Trump. And people were so disaffected with the liberal message that they were willing to vote for him.

President-elect [Donald] Trump has made a provocative choice for secretary of education. Betsy DeVos comes from a wealthy Michigan family. She is an advocate for school choice. That phrase means, in essence, directing public education money to charter schools, private schools or parochial schools.

[Identity liberalism] says, on the one hand, you can never understand me because you are not exactly the kind of person I've defined myself to be. And on the other hand, you must recognize me and feel for me. Well, if you're so different that I'm not able to get into your head and I'm not able to experience or sympathize with what you experience, why should I care?

Identity liberalism, as I understand it, is expressive rather than persuasive.

When the Defense Department was established after World War II, a law said that any defense secretary with military experience must have been out of the military at least seven years. General [James] Mattis doesn't meet that.

Toward the end of the campaign, we interviewed some voters in Raleigh, N.C., which is a generally Democratic city, and I'm thinking of a young couple. They had two kids. They described themselves as Christian. They oppose gay marriage. And they were saying that even though they didn't like Donald Trump, they were thinking of voting for him. And one of the reasons was they felt that they were - their very views were making them socially unacceptable. They were feeling a little alienated from the world.

I'm just imagining some of [Mark Lilla] fellow liberals being rather angry at you saying such a thing [that Democrats and liberals, more generally, lost a lot of political capital ].