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.

I prefer a dirty victory to a noble defeat.

[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.

I have reported enough about Islam and terrorism to recognize that a lot of what is at stake is not strictly religion, even though it's also about power and control. In the case of Karachi, like so many other growing cities, it's also about land, mafias, gang activity.

Is that really the issue [of bathrooms and gender] we want to be pushing leading up to a momentous election like this one? It's that shortsightedness that comes from identity politics.

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.

We have to remember in that Bloomberg poll, strong Republican support for [Donald ]Trump's proposal, but the country at large - strong opposition to that support.