The Voters Have Spoken. What Comes Next?

About this episode

The Washington Roundtable convenes after a historic midterm election—which amounted to a sweeping repudiation of Donald Trump and the Republican Party that the staff writer Susan B. Glasser says is “unlike any election that we’ve seen.” The panel discusses how the incoming Democratic Congress might balance its efforts to investigate the Administration with a legislative agenda focussed on affordability. They discuss the emerging civil war in the G.O.P. and whether this election marks a temporary backlash against Trump or the beginning of a lasting political realignment. If there’s a lesson that politicians from both parties might glean from the results, Evan Osnos says, it’s to “stay close to what people are actually feeling and asking for in their lives—stay close to what they’re complaining about, what matters to them, what gives them joy, what gives them sorrow—and you will probably do better than going off and building golden arches for yourself.” The Political Scene will be live on stage at Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., with the senator Reverend Raphael Warnock, on November 18th. Get tickets » This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Repudiation, America’s Revenge,”