"Big" government? Who wants that? I just want effective government. That means America's government needs to be big in some places, small in others and non-existent in others.

The Trump phenomenon has a lot of really good stuff in it, the anti-elitism, the concern for America's economy in the Rust Belt, the desire to see better days for the country. That's all great stuff. Some of that stuff is Bernie Sanders stuff. The problem is that it's marbled through with xenophobia and misogyny and bigotry.

A one-sided analysis of anything always leads you into the wrong direction.

There is great wisdom, there's great strength and there's great beauty in all of our religion, and those should be marshaled for good.

Clean energy is hippy power. But its also cowboy power, it's rancher power, it's Appalachian power.

That old Bobby Kennedy 1968 form of liberalism where you could be holding hands with the Appalachian family on one day and then be in Harlem the next day and nobody thinks it's weird, that is something that isn't as strong. It was strong in 2008. It hasn't been as strong since then. That's just a reality that we have to deal with that it's not just that the Republicans ran a terrible candidate who had bad ideas, it's also that the circle of love and affirmation that we have as progressives can sometimes just not be big enough.

The laws of spiritual physics will not allow you to lead somebody that you don't love, that you don't care about, that you resent, that you look down on. That's why the Republicans can't lead black people. And that's why Democrats increasingly can't lead these straight, white, male demons that we hate so much.