We've learned something about President-elect [Donald] Trump's choice for secretary of defense. Lawmakers in Congress intend to proper debate over whether retired General James Mattis meets a requirement for civilian control of the military.

Republicans are now trying to stop Donald Trump. And there was much more ferocious and widespread criticism from Republicans of Trump this time around.

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.

[Mark] Lilla is a professor at Columbia University in New York, and he has waded into the debate about what Democrats and liberals should do now. Some Democrats answer nothing.

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

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.

Hillary Clinton, [Democrats] say, leads the popular vote by two million, and a shift of a few votes in a few states would have won the election.