The Opinions

From Matt Gaetz to Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Donald Trump’s outlandish cabinet selections reflect the power of social and political deviance, the Opinion columnist Bret Stephens argues in this episode.

President-elect Donald Trump has said that as president, he will negotiate an end to the carnage in Ukraine in a single day. A peace deal could have ugly effects for Ukraine, but according to the contributing writer Megan Stack, Trump should put an end to the war and finally be the friend to Ukraine America likes to believe it is.

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Exit polls from the presidential election reveal a divided country: Women tended to vote for Kamala Harris; men, for Donald Trump. And that divide may extend to citizens who aren’t yet of voting age. Naomi Beinart, a 16-year-old junior, witnessed it at her school in the days after the election. In this episode, Beinart says that while her fellow female students fear for the future, “this election didn’t seem to measurably change anything for the boys around me, whether their parents supported Mr. Trump or not.”

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Donald Trump has referred to Hungary’s autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, as “a great man, a great leader.” In this episode, the columnist M. Gessen, who is in exile from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, draws parallels between Trump, Orban and Putin. Gessen explores what life might look like in Trump’s next term and describes their fear that, this time, “people are going to retreat into their private lives and try to shut out the political world.”

In a recent interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he expected that the Trump administration would recommend against putting fluoride in drinking water, which was met with public outrage and confusion. The economist Emily Oster argues the public deserves more nuanced analysis and explanation on public health issues like fluoridation to build trust. Public health is complex, she says, but experts need to believe that the public can understand the context in which decisions are made — and explain that context accordingly. “I think that the right way to move forward is with nuance,” Oster explains. “That is how we will get to a greater good overall.”

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The biggest divide in America today is not about race or gender, the Times Opinion columnist David Brooks argues. In this episode, he explains how the “diploma divide” can help us understand Donald Trump’s overwhelming support from working-class Americans and what Democrats can do to win them back.

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Voters chose Donald Trump, in part, in response to inflation under President Biden. And yet, the columnist Paul Krugman argues, the new president-elect’s economic plan “is the most inflationary program probably that any American president has ever tried to implement.” In this episode, Krugman outlines four reasons Trump’s economic plans will hurt Americans’ wallets.

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For those caught off guard, Trump’s victory has been a shock. In this episode of “The Opinions,” the columnist and “Matter of Opinion” co-host Carlos Lozada encourages his fellow Americans to ask a sobering question: If Trump is our preferred leader, what does that mean for who we are as a nation?

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The New York Times Opinion columnists Lydia Polgreen and Tressie McMillan Cottom discuss what was revealed about America on Tuesday, why the Democrats failed and what individuals can do about the future.

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Donald Trump’s enduring hold over the Republican Party may send him back to the White House. On this episode of The Opinions, the columnist David French joins deputy Opinion Editor Patrick Healy to discuss the future of the G.O.P. and what a second Trump term might mean for America.

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