How did this happen? That's the question every Democrat should be asking today, following former President Donald Trump's resounding defeat of Vice President Kamala Harris.

And to answer it, I've got a modest suggestion.

Don't study the exit polls. Don't blame Harris, or President Biden, or the news media, or the Russian bots. And don't read morning-after ruminations by demoralized liberals (except maybe mine).

Instead, talk to people who voted for Trump.

We haven't done nearly enough of that. Instead, we have too often assumed that Trump voters are racist, sexist, transphobic or just stupid. I mean, what else could bring someone to vote for him?

That's what we need to find out. But if our opening gambit is that they're morally or cognitively warped, we never will.

When Trump won the first time, in 2016, I organized a conversation between students at the University of Pennsylvania — where I teach — and at Cairn University. Formerly known as Philadelphia Bible College, Cairn was mostly Republican; Penn was heavily Democratic.

We arranged the room like a wedding, with circular tables on the floor and a raised platform up front. We gave everyone table numbers, which we staggered........

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