Nor do the numbers indicate the party should lurch to the center. Anxious moderates, especially veterans of the Clinton wars in nineties, are already warning that the party will doom its chances by shifting to the left. That caution betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the contemporary political scene. Parties recover from defeat in two ways. They can try to beat the opposition at their own game, accommodating the other side in an attempt to woo swing voters, as Bill Clinton did in 1992. But they can also try to change the rules of the game, offering a fundamental contrast with their opponents that reframes the debate and makes new coalitions possible. Ronald Reagan did it in 1980, Barack Obama did it in 2008, and, unfortunately, Donald Trump did it in 2016.