Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, November 7, 2025

“It was my Beyond Talking Points podcast conversation with Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center last month that convinced me of Donald Trump’s impending victory and what it might mean for our country.

In a phrase only a beltway scholar could coin, Olsen called the 2024 election a “binomial contest of values.” Human translation: Politics is increasingly our identity and there are two competing identities on offer.

One identity is that of traditional values, faith, marriage and family, and nationalism. The other is about sexual and gender liberalism, ethnic diversity, global cooperation, progress and secularism. This is why nothing else about the contest seemingly mattered — the Jan. 6 riots, Joe Biden’s health decline, the amount of campaign money or a Taylor Swift endorsement. What was at stake was in some ways as existential as it has felt — a stamp of approval on one way of life or another, movement in one direction or the other.

Pay attention to this: Despite a nearly total red wave this week with a historic coalition for Republicans, the county remains as deeply divided by these two identities today as it was a week ago. The underlying conflict is not decided but remains as tender and raw as has been the case as long as we’ve been a 50-50 country, which is for decades now. . . “