Socialism cannot survive when people are free to think for themselves, and America will never be a socialist country. - Charlie Kirk

Most of Washington can’t comprehend how this could have happened. They’re as perplexed by his achievements as they are by his giant crowds. They think they know what competence looks like: a four-hundred-dollar haircut and consultants telling you how not to make news. Never be funny. Take yourself too seriously for that. Meet as often as possible with other leaders who also have spent their careers trying not to generate headlines. Where average Americans see in Trump an effort to restore greatness through opportunity and prosperity, the elite see someone alarming. If you can succeed in politics without the help of hundreds of lawyers, lobbyists, and reporters propping you up, an awful lot of members of the elite could be on the verge of losing their jobs.

She also defended law enforcement officials who got convictions by withholding evidence or falsifying confessions. It is terrifying to think that about an eighth of the US prison population lives in a state with such a coldly bureaucratic conception of justice. (She may have had coldly careerist notions about sex back in the ’90s as well, since she notoriously slept with San Francisco assembly speaker Willie Brown, who was still married at the time, as he appointed her to a series of well-paid city positions.)

I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that — it does a lot of damage. But it is very effective when it comes to politics. When Bill Clinton said, 'I feel your pain,' that was a brilliant political move. It was total nonsense, but it worked. I prefer sympathy. Sympathy is a much better word. Sympathy is saying, 'I’m sorry for what you’re going through, I’m going to try to help you.' Empathy is like, 'I’m going to become you, I’m going to feel exactly what you’re feeling.' It’s impossible, it’s narcissistic, and it’s destructive.