The The Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. What else but the

election for today's show? But with things still somewhat up in the air we'll focus

on some longer-term issues this deeply

unsatisfying contest brought out. To help us in this effort we'll be joined by the

historian journalist V.J. Pershade and the political scientist Jody Dean.

Trump may be on the way out, we still don't know for sure in this marvelous democracy we have, but he's transformed our political landscape in potentially long-lasting ways.

Contrary to early prognostications that he would have, in potentially long lasting ways.

Contrary to early prognostications that he would tear it apart,

the Republican Party is now solidly his.

Mainstream hopes that he would suffer a crushing defeat that would lead the GOP on an extended rethink have proven deeply wrong.

The party did far better than anyone expected in congressional as well as state and local races.

That blue tsunami that many pundits forecast just never

happened. Trump has energized a large fraction of the population including

very significantly the police in scary ways. Images of cops beating and pepper spraying

peaceful protesters have become standard fair. The folks in Blue seem to take any

demonstration more personally than they did in the past and Trump is a major reason for that.

Despite his ignorance and indifference to detail,

Trump did accomplish a lot of his miserable policy agenda. Cutting taxes,

deregulating everything, despoiling the environment, blocking immigration and

demonizing migrants, moving the federal judiciary solidly and durably to the right.

Against that, the corporate Democrats mounted a very weak effort with little positive content.

Their main appeal was and still is that they're just not Trump, which really isn't much of a message.

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