This is the Friends of Mr. Debating Society. I'm John Batchelor, welcoming. That is Macotta, recovering

a politician writing an American greatness, observing Mr. Trump's second term in weeks, a populist election

and a populist movement. We've seen it before. What happens next? That is a very good evening to you.

What follows populism into the White House? Good evening to you, John. Well, we're not quite sure.

And we've seen people make predictions in the wake of the 2024 election, Mr. Trump's

electoral landslide, is win with the popular vote, which I think was entirely

unexpected, certainly by the people on the left or left side of the political spectrum.

But there are also prognostications made by both Republicans and Democrats regarding the election that I think really need to be taken with an immense grain of salt.

John, you see a lot of people within the MAGA movement saying that this is the ultimate triumph of MAGA, that the country is now in a Republican realignment and the Republican Party is realigned in terms of a blue-collar,

more minority base, base coalition. But this is one election. It was a big triumph for Mr.

Trump, yes, a big triumph for the MAG movement, but it was their second. And in between,

they've also had a failure.

We'll see what happens now.

We also have to look into John why a lot of the Senate candidates,

despite Mr. Trump winning and swing states,

losing such as places like Michigan, my home state,

Wisconsin, Arizona, and others.

So there is an issue of whether or not this was an election whereby Mr.

Trump was viewed as based upon people's practical experience that his four years were

better than Biden's four years and people voted for Mr. Trump to go back to the prosperity

that they saw during his tenure,

and yet did not trust him enough or the agenda enough to give him mammoth majorities in the Senate

...