Four big US election takes: Yes, it was the woke stuff.

Plus how to know when the Democrats are taking their problems seriously, the one good thing Trump might do, and why the polls were right

The annoying thing about being a writer in my position is that often really massive news events don’t leave that much to write about.

The US election is one such example of this. I’ve offered my take, but I also know that I’m very unlikely to be the first person people turn to for analysis. What can I say that actual American pundits won’t get to first?

That’s why it’s weirdly much better for me when there isn’t a single dominant story, and instead there’s a chance that people might want to read about, say, postcodes instead of the end of American hegemony.

But this doesn’t mean that I don’t have many more opinions about the election. So in this newsletter, I’m offering four shorter takes on different aspects of What Just Happened:

• Why “the woke stuff” should receive some of the blame for the disaster.

• Who the two canaries in the Democratic coal mine are – and how they will tell us if the party is serious about changing.

• The one thing that the Trump administration could conceivably do better than a Harris administration.

• And why we should acknowledge the polls were right… again.

Plus! Catch up with my chat with Emma Burnell reacting to the election – I’ve embedded the full video below.

1. Yes, it was the woke stuff (to an extent)