As the Democratic Party surveys the smoking wreckage of their electoral hopes and dreams, there will no doubt be a movement to figure it all out and try to fix whatever's wrong, in preparation for next time. The pundits are already busy tossing ideas out, and the party bigwigs will probably make some sort of official effort to understand it all at some point.

While Democrats have largely been united -- to a historic degree -- around being anti-Trump for the past eight years or so, the party's various factions have mostly kept from huge public squabbles with each other. That was an enormous change from the way the party had previously operated. Nancy Pelosi deserves a lot of credit for this, in fact, since nobody herds Congressional Democratic cats like she can. But it was also mostly just putting up a united face against Trump and Trumpism that brought Democrats together. This will undoubtedly also hold them together in Congress for Trump's second term, but there will be power struggles behind the scenes for what the party's agenda and message should truly be, heading forward.

The factional squabbling will begin anew, in other words. Now that Democrats are so far out of power that the party is now essentially leaderless (with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris about to leave the stage, Chuck Schumer about to lose his Senate majority, and Hakeem Jeffries largely unknown to the America people). That vacuum won't stay empty long. I would say something like "it wouldn't surprise me to see ambitious Democrats immediately announce their 2028 presidential campaigns," but heck, Gavin Newsom has been running what certainly looks like a fledgling presidential campaign for over a year now. Whenever he does get around to formally announcing his run, it will come as no surprise to anyone. And Newsom is not the only Democratic politician who looks in the bathroom mirror in the morning and sees a president looking back at him -- there'll be plenty more to come.

I'm not going to get into the factional squabbling quite yet. But it is rather annoying to read analyses that try to shoehorn the Democrats' political moment into the traditional one-dimensional left-right axis of politics. It wasn't "the left" that lost this election, and it wasn't "the center" or "the center-left" or anything like that. It's far too simplistic to see things that way.

Pundits like to lump a lot of things into "the left" and then inevitably come to the conclusion that Americans are too innately conservative to support any of it. This misses the point, though. From where I sit, I haven't seen an honest presidential election between "the left" and "the right" in my adult lifetime. There have been several candidates who easily fit the definition of "the right," but zero that I would truly call "the left."

This is why I really wanted to see Bernie Sanders take on Donald Trump, because that would have been a true battle between the populism of the left and however you want to define Trump's version of populism. But Bernie didn't win the nomination, either time he ran.

The problem with too-facile analyses is that they lump everything together. And it is true that lefties have come up with some wildly unpopular policy ideas and hold some wildly unpopular culture war opinions. Republicans routinely exploit these by making them wedge issues. Look at how they've portrayed trans people (who are the current boogeyman the Republicans are using to scare suburban parents with). So Democrats are forced into playing defense on such things rather than making their own economic arguments.

But the left isn't just about human dignity for all and bodily autonomy and whatnot. It's also about making working people's lives better. This is the first of the three concepts I wish more pundits would realize and I hope the Democratic Party considers whenever they get around to doing a post-mortem on the 2024 election.

Economic policies matter

Joe Biden missed an enormous opportunity, but to be fair to him it was not through lack of trying. The most surprising thing about Biden, when he secured the party's nomination in 2020, was that he moved so far to the left on so many things after he got into office. Chief among these was the economy.

Bernie Sanders deserves the lion's share of the credit for this, of course. But Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin deserve the blame for Biden's effort falling short. Because while Biden did indeed pass sweeping legislation that implemented some lefty economic ideas -- a better legislative record than any Democrat since L.B.J., in fact -- what might have passed could have been so much better than what we got.

Biden's "Build Back Better" didn't go as far as Bernie wanted, but it went far enough to have made fundamental changes in tens of millions of Americans' lives. Affordable child care. Affordable elder care. Reducing the cost of not just a handful, but dozens of prescription medicines. Continuing the hike in the Child Tax Credit that cut child poverty in half. Free community college for all. This isn't even a comprehensive list -- there were plenty of other innovative programs contained in Build Back Better as well.

If only Sinema and Manchin had let it pass, people might not have felt so badly about the economy when it came time to vote in 2024. The price of groceries was up, but there would be a cap on the expenses you'd have to pay for child care (so you could go to work). Poor people would be getting monthly checks for every child they cared for. People may still have been downbeat about inflation but at least it would have been counterbalanced by some new things that helped them. Prescription drug cost reform would be underway in a big way instead of being pushed off (for budgetary reasons) past the presidential election. Now when seniors notice next year that their drug costs have been capped (so they'll only have to pay a certain amount every year, after which they will pay nothing), they may actually (erroneously) give Trump credit for making it happen rather than Biden. That's what Sinema and Manchin did.

Far too many pundits lump all the culture-war issues of the left with their populist economic agenda. And then conclude something like: "America rejected the left's ideas." But we have never had a true champion of lefty economic ideas as our nominee for president (Biden campaigned as a centrist before evolving more to Bernie's view after taking office). Even the good things Democrats do achieve are hardly mentioned (this is a separate issue with the party, the inability to toot their own horn effectively).

Lefty populism is actually, well, popular. The right can demonize these policies all they want, but when even red states get to vote (via ballot measure) on ideas like raising the minimum wage or forcing employers to offer paid leave, they win. A whole lot of red-state voters vote for them. That's exactly what Bernie Sanders tapped into. Most Democratic presidential candidates offer up only incrementalism, at best. "Well, maybe we'll tweak this one program a bit, so that a few hundred thousand more people will see slight benefits" is not enough, though. Not when Donald Trump is out there telling people he'll end the income tax on tips or Social Security payments or whatever. While too many Democrats either run away from a truly economic-populist agenda or spend all their energy explaining that while it'd be nice, it simply isn't possible at the current time -- so people should be thankful for the slow grind of incrementalism.

Bold populist economic ideas are winners, and Democrats need to truly figure that out. This isn't a messaging problem, it's an ideological one. Democrats have got to get over being so timid about supporting big, bold economic ideas that have a direct and tangible impact on people's lives. You can tell the difference between ideas that are bold and those that aren't by which ones can fit on a bumpersticker and which ones need two paragraphs to explain. "Cap child care costs for families" works. "We may need to tweak the income tax laws so that more families can somehow deduct a fraction of their child-care expenses from their adjusted gross income, which will ever-so-slightly lower their taxes" does not.

Trump is a black swan

This is the second thing a lot of people miss in their analyses. Trump is a phenomenon. He's broken all the rules of politics, without ever having to pay a price for any of it. He is so far removed from a normal politician that analyzing political strategy with him in the picture becomes almost impossible. He is so unique that it's almost meaningless to try.

To put this another way, what didn't work against Trump might work well against other Republicans. Conversely, what did work against Trump might be worthless in a race without him on the ticket. He is so unusual that you simply can't draw conclusions that might transfer to the politics that will exist after he leaves the stage. Trump is term-limited and cannot run for president again. So four years and a few months from now, he'll be gone. The Republican Party may be in their own crisis at that point, depending on how the public feels about Trump's second term. But no matter where they find themselves, the GOP will be casting around for a successor to Trump to lead their party.

But the important part is that even if this turns out to be a Trump clone, they may not be able to match his popularity with the base. Which is not based on issues, but rather almost solely on his personality. And nobody else on the Republican side has been able to match Trump's draw. So whether they go with a Trump clone or a more-traditional candidate in 2028, it'll be something different than running against Trump. Any lessons learned from the Democratic Party's struggle with Trump may be useless against the next Republican to emerge from the pack.

Trump truly is unique. What happens post-Trump will be different, because it's hard to see any Republican truly and effectively bottling the Trump lightning for their own use. Which brings me to my final point.

The entertainment value gap

Donald Trump is charismatic. He oozes charisma. Charisma isn't inherently a good thing or a bad thing, after all. It is neutral. It is a quality some people have and some people don't. Bill Clinton has it. Barack Obama has it. Joe Biden doesn't, or not very much. On the other side, George W. Bush has charisma of his own sort. Mitt Romney does not. It is an ineffable thing, but an important one. People used to talk about which politician they'd rather "sit down and have a beer with," which essentially measures the same quality.

If "charisma" is too loaded a word, how about "entertainment value"? Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is entertaining. He's slipped in this regard -- he used to be a lot more entertaining than he can manage now. This might become more and more apparent after he takes office (it will likely depend on how often he appears in front of the cameras and takes questions). But he holds your interest when you see him, whether you are cringing or cheering. That much is pretty obvious.

Democrats struggle with what might be called the "entertainment value gap." Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama broke out of this problem, to be sure, but when you look at the ones that didn't make it you can see what I mean. John Kerry? Al Gore? Hillary Clinton? None of them had much entertainment value at all. They were all pretty boring, although admittedly Clinton being the first woman presidential nominee of a major party was pretty exciting for many. But Clinton never seemed to too many people like it'd be any fun to sit down and have a beer with her. Unfair? Surely. But these things do matter.

Kamala Harris doesn't really fit either group. She actually is pretty charismatic. She gives a great speech and thousands flocked to see her. She started her campaign on "joy." She could laugh, and even laugh at herself. She was relatable to a whole bunch of people. I could easily see sitting down with her and having a beer. But it just wasn't enough.

Harris is nowhere near as charismatic as Obama or Bill Clinton. When Democrats consider their next presidential candidate, I for one hope that someone both entertaining and charismatic is chosen. No matter what their ideology, really. We need someone to command the audience's attention. And that's a lot harder to do, these days.

Harris was just not quite up to taking on Trump's entertainment value, or perhaps she just wasn't dealt a good enough hand. If Biden had decided not to run and Harris had won the primaries, perhaps she would have been able to build on her own personality more. If she had had more time to make her case after Biden decided to step down, perhaps that might have helped too. Or perhaps her being a woman of color was just too much for too many voters anyway. But Harris definitely isn't as charismatically-challenged as Kerry or Gore. She did excite many who heard her speak. She did eviscerate Trump during a debate. But somehow it just wasn't quite enough.

Conclusions (such as they are)

Politics has changed, and some Democrats haven't caught up yet. Politics is now about social media taunting and forcefully countering the other side's energy. No matter who the Republicans put up next time, Democrats should look to nominate someone feisty. Someone who won't ignore insults or take them lying down, but instead will stand up and fight them. The only effective way to deal with a bully is to stand up to him, after all.

People care more about this aspect of a presidential candidate's personality than they do about actual policy. Trump just proved that once again. For Democrats to win -- especially against a Trump clone -- they're going to have to get down in the fray and fight for what they believe. The era of Michelle Obama's "when they go low, we go high" is over, to put this another way.

I have no idea who will emerge as the Democrat's next standard-bearer. Bernie's too old, and A.O.C. still seems too young. There are plenty of others to consider, who are all over the ideological Democratic map. But they've got to prove that they can play the game of politics as it is now played, instead of longing for some golden past when it was played differently. Those times are over, at least for the foreseeable future.

Donald Trump won't be the Republican candidate next time around. That's one thing that is guaranteed by his win -- there will be an end to the Trump era of American politics, once and for all. Both the Republicans and the Democrats are going to have to move on to something different. Republicans don't have to worry about such things right now, they're looking forward to being in power for the next four years instead. Democrats, on the other hand, have all this time to get ready for whatever's next. There will be intraparty squabbles and whatnot as they work their way through this, but hopefully they'll learn some of the right lessons this time.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant