Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with Trump's win across the board for the presidency,

flipping the US Senate to GOP control,

and likely holding onto the House as well as winning the popular vote for the first time.

We will discuss this upset win in the popular vote,

since Trump got 4 million fewer votes on Tuesday than he did in 2020,

while Harris came in at 66 million and counting far below Biden's 2020 total of 81 million popular votes.

Joining us is John Nichols, the Nation Magazine's Washington Correspondent. His books include

The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party, the enduring legacy of Henry Wallace's anti-fascist, anti-racist

politics, and most recently coronavirus criminals and pandemic profiteers, accountability for those

who caused the crisis. We will discuss his recent articles

at the nation. Wisconsin's GOP Senate candidate has made a massive blunder and recipe for a Harris

win, more Obama less Cheney. Then we'll look into the education divide that characterized

this election with Harris winning

educated voters while Trump attracted the less educated voters and speak with Lily Geismar, a professor

of history at Claremont-McKennan College, whose research and teaching focuses on 20th century

political and urban history in the United States, especially liberalism and the Democratic Party.

She's the author of Left Behind, The Democrats Failed Attempt to Solve Inequality, and Don't Blame Us, Suburban Liberals and the Transformation of the Democratic Party.

Her forthcoming book is Mastery and Drift, Professional Class Liberals,

since the 1960s. Then finally we'll assess the role of foreign policy in the election

and how much the America First isolationism that Trump and Vance espouse will determine

...