Ever since [Ronald] Reagan, they've been able to capture the message and an understanding - or persuade people of a certain understanding of what the nation is about and what's good for it.

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.

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.

So many awful things have happened in Karachi, it's true. It has its own crazy rhythm. Even as crazy as other news is in Pakistan, the city manages to beat that in the frequency of catastrophes.

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

The president-elect seems to want Russia as a friend. President Obama arguably has not wanted to say that Russia is that great of a threat.

Tradition has to be retaken by the liberal forces, so that they can show their values of tolerance and democracy not as novel western ideas but as ones indigenous to Pakistan, as a part of its very creation.