The deeper they dig into federal and state election results, some Democrats are coming to a harsh, humbling conclusion: America rejected soft liberalism, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column.

• Why it matters: You see it in Hispanic men turning against Democrats … L.A. and San Francisco dumping Democrats seen as soft on crime and homelessness … white men taking to podcasts to lament word-policing and strict DEI policies … California voting to undo social justice reforms … a growing number of Democrats scolding their party for condescending political correctness.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn). tweeted yesterday that the left is "out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA. We refuse to pick big fights. Our tent is too small."

• "We don't listen enough; we tell people what's good for them," he added.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, a Democrat from the Bronx, tweeted the morning after the election: "Donald Trump has no greater friend than the far left, which has managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like 'Defund the Police.'"

• "The working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling," Torres added.

🖼️ The big picture: It's striking how dramatically the pendulum swung. A few short years ago, COVID caution, DEI activism, big-city drug decriminalization, police scrutiny, and tents to alleviate homelessness were fully ascendant. Not just with liberals.

• These ideas fused into Democratic orthodoxy that seeped fast and deep into companies and the media. They were seen as a new expression of compassion, inclusivity and penitence for sins of the past and present.
• Republicans who rebelled or recoiled were chastised as bigoted, anachronistic — or simply protecting a world dominated by the white men running their party.

Between the lines: Democrats sought to give voice to groups long marginalized and silenced in politics. But little by little, the backlash unfurled. In retrospect, the signs were clear, a number of top Democrats told us.

• It started with COVID, where the prevailing view was to listen to the government, and health professionals who demanded vaccines and lockdowns. But the cost of what a lot of people saw as acting cautiously hit hard for families: lost jobs or businesses, the sadness of isolation, kids growing more screen-addicted and distant.

The murder of George Floyd, by a white cop, preserved on camera, jarred the nation. Horrified, millions marched, protested, demanded swift change.

• A movement to defund the police caught fire, despite evidence that crime rises when officers leave. "We could never wash off the stench of it," Democratic strategist James Carville told the N.Y. Times' Maureen Dowd for a column with the print headline, "A Wake for Woke."
• Carville said "defund the police" were "the three stupidest words in the English language." Crime rose. Eventually, most Democrats who called to defund the police scrambled to undo the political and practical damage. It was too late.
• "I think the identity politics stuff is absolutely killing us," a centrist House Democrat told Axios' Andrew Solender for this piece, new this morning, on House Dems' rising internal war.

The reality of liberal-run cities, gutted by crime and citizens fleeing — dotted with large tent communities for homeless people, ravaged by drugs — went viral. Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco were seen as case studies of unmitigated permissiveness.

• How people felt didn't always match the data: As Axios' Russell Contreras has thoroughly covered, violent crime dropped in major U.S. cities as the COVID-era crime wave receded.

But last week's elections rendered a harsh verdict. Political outsider Keith Wilson was elected Portland mayor after campaigning against tent cities and drug freedoms. "It's time to end unsheltered homelessness and open drug use, and it's time to restore public safety in Portland," he said in his victory speech.

• In San Francisco, moderate Democrat Daniel Lurie was elected mayor with similar promises. "We are going to get tough on those that are dealing drugs, and we are going to be compassionate but tough about the conditions of our streets as well," Lurie said at a press conference last week.

Column continues below.

Something bigger had been exploding across society, politics and business. Democrats, business and the media pushed diversity, equity and inclusion from an aspiration to a de facto mandate, Jim and Mike write.

• The new language of inclusivity included Latinx, a word that even many Latino groups rolled their eyes at. "Some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke," Dowd wrote.
• These topics stirred white college men to vote in unusually high numbers. College women, stirred by concerns over abortion restrictions, were expected to offset the male surge. It didn't happen.

While the political correctness spike was hitting its apex, millions of people were storming the Southwest border, believing the Democratic administration would let them in.

• Many watched as every Democrat, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, raised their hands on a jammed presidential debate stage in 2019 in favor of decriminalizing the border.
• This was the ruling view until Hispanic Democratic congressmen sounded the alarm that the borders were being overrun — and that their mostly Hispanic population was livid.

The earliest days of the Biden presidency showed what was to come. It was Democrats who said a radical shift was urgent to avoid peril.

• Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) told CNN in 2021 that Biden's policies would be "catastrophic for our party, for our country, for my region, for my district."

🔎 Zoom in: Eventually, Biden, Harris and most Democrats changed. But it was too late to undo the damage. Immigration dominated the campaign, mostly to Trump's advantage.

• Lots of Democrats want to chalk up defeat to inflation concerns and a global backlash against ruling parties. There's lots of data to back this up. People are too complicated to assign one cause of death in politics.

But if you look at the tone of Trump's ads in the waning weeks, it was dark warnings about crime and transgender rights. The combination produced a drop for Democrats that few saw coming.

• Did anyone think Trump would do 23 points better in the district of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)? Or romp in Hispanic-heavy areas, especially along the border? Or roll up much bigger support in big blue cities nationwide?
• Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), who co-chairs the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, told us: "We didn't convince them that we're laser-focused on the basics."

🧮 By the numbers: As Democrats stare into exit polls, they see the harsh reality with new clarity: Trump improved his margins with women by three points and young women by 11; Hispanics by 13 and African American men by 25.

• CNN's Harry Enten found Trump produced the GOP's best showing among younger voters (18-29) in 20 years ... among Black voters in 48 years ... and among Hispanic voters in the 52-year history of exit polls.

"Democrats need to take a hard look at our party's brand, because it is repelling too many voters that should be with us," Democratic strategist Doug Thornell, CEO of the strategic communications firm SKDK.

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President-elect Trump announced on his Truth Social platform late last night that Tom Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the first Trump administration, will be "The Border Czar" in Trump 2.0.

• Why it matters: ICE agents will take a pivotal operational role in delivering on Trump's promise to "seal the border" and conduct the "largest deportation operation in American history."

Trump called Homan "a stalwart on Border Control," and said there's "nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders. ... Tom Homan will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin."

📺 Homan told Maria Bartiromo yesterday on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures" that the deportation operation will target "the worst of the worst. So it's gonna be the worst first," prioritizing criminal threats and national-security threats.

• "It's going to be a well-targeted, planned operation ... by the men of ICE," Homan said. "It'll be a humane operation, but it's a necessary mass deportation operation." (Video)

🗞️ Homan told The Sunday Times of London: "We're going to concentrate on the worst of the worst ... It's going to be a lot different to what the liberal media is saying it's going to be."

🌐 Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) will be U.S. ambassador to the U.N., the N.Y. Post reported, quoting a statement by Trump to the paper. \

• Editor's note: Deletes incorrect title for Homan's new role.

The price of bitcoin sailed past $80,000 for the first time yesterday, fueled by a burst of optimism from traders betting on support from a Trump White House + GOP Congress. (Financial Times)

• Bitcoin is up about 18% since Election Day.

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President-elect Trump intervened from Mar-a-Lago in this week's suddenly scrambled race for Senate majority leader, demanding that the candidates embrace using "recess appointments" to bypass Senate confirmation votes.

• All three of the candidates quickly saluted. The secret-ballot vote will be Wednesday.

Why it matters: It all played out in just a few hours on Elon Musk's X — a tiny taste of the platform's rising juice as Trump maps his new government.

Here's how it unfolded, as reported in real time by Axios' Stef Kight:

1. As we told you yesterday, MAGA media (including Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk) cranked up the pressure on Trump (who hasn't endorsed) and GOP senators to dump the two establishment frontrunners — Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas — and go with the MAGA choice, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida.
2. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a real contender for a top cabinet post, tweeted that he'd support Scott.
3. Trump posted on Truth Social, then X: "Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner."
4. Musk threw support behind Scott after the senator quickly agreed to Trump's demand on nominations.
5. Within 2½ hours, all three candidates backed Trump's demand.

Go deeper: Trump spoke with Vladimir Putin Thursday and warned him not to escalate the fighting in Ukraine, Axios' Barak Ravid reports.

An abnormally dry fall is setting up dangerous conditions for wildfires to spread across the country.

• Why it matters: Last month was America's second warmest and second driest October on record, according to NOAA.

🔢 By the numbers: Parts of every state except Alaska experienced at least moderate drought during the first week of November, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

• 88% of the contiguous U.S. had at least abnormally dry conditions as of Thursday — the highest number in Drought Monitor's 25-year history.

On the East Coast, firefighters battled wildfires from the Philly suburbs to the Boston area.

• On the West Coast, firefighters in Southern California's Ventura County have gained ground on a wildfire that had spread to 32 square miles.

Go deeper.

Veterans make up the greatest share of the adult population in Alaska (10.5%), Virginia (9.1%) and Montana (8.9%), Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick writes from the latest census data.

• They make up about 6.1% of the U.S. population.

They make up the lowest shares in D.C. (3.2%), New York (3.6%) and New Jersey (3.6%).

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World War II veterans from Texas were saluted during the first half of the Dallas Cowboys game yesterday against the Philadelphia Eagles.

• The Cowboys wore red, white and blue stripes on their helmets. (Photo)