This is why political consultants will never change the world. They look at the seething ball of humanity that makes up a political district — a writhing mass of hopes and dreams and desperation, covered in fluctuating layers of repression and ignorance and inspiration — and they see a neat column of numbers. They see a set of fixed quantities. They see politics as the art of running towards the favorable numbers and away from the bad ones. They do not see that that entire grand edifice of numbers can be reversed. It can be smashed, with breathtaking speed, if the real people in the real places change their minds.

The data-driven model of politics that rules the United States, that governs the spending of the Democratic Party, that starts with the status quo and cautiously wonders if it can move a single space on the policy chessboard, is vulnerable to those who understand that all of that data can be changed. It is vulnerable to those who know how to organize.

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As soon as Election Day is over, the battle to write the narrative begins. Whoever is able to persuade the bulk of the party and the public of their own narrative can take control of the direction of the party as we turn towards the next presidential election. This battle for control of the Democratic vision is more pronounced right now than it has ever been in my lifetime. Now, for the first time in decades, the left wing of the Democratic Party is not a bunch of fringe outsiders begging for scraps. The Left is surging and ascendent. The next two years will not just be about thwarting the deranged and retrograde ambitions of MAGA world; they will be a fight for the steering wheel of the Democratic steamroller.