I never loved Hillary Clinton, but I still voted for her because I’m not stupid. In a year where anti-establishment ideals were being felt across the world, with events such as Brexit or the Colombian peace deal vote, Hillary Clinton presented a same-old, same-old vision for our country. Was she inspiring? Maybe. Was she exciting? To a certain extent. Not until it got very close to the election did Hillary Clinton start turning out Bernie-sized rallies.

Donald Trump, a man I affectionately refer to in my personal life as the second coming of Adolf Hitler, won because he appealed to swing state voters in a way Hillary simply couldn’t. Their factory jobs are being closed and shipped to countries like Mexico, or if they are still open they have operations shift to becoming owned by foreign interests. Their lives aren’t getting any better under Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton is essentially a continuation of Obama’s politics and beliefs. Trump won because he got through to these voters with a passionate argument that, while I don’t believe in it or support it, managed to awaken people who had felt disenfranchised.

But he’s not the only one who did that this cycle.

Enter Bernie Sanders. Coming from nowhere, he gave Hillary Clinton the race of her life in the primaries. He gained much of his support from millennials of all races, and in particular did well with white voters, both college and non-college. Rather than say their economic struggles are the fault of Mexicans, Black people, Iranians or the Chinese, he blamed it on establishment interests blocking change from happening, and proposed policies such as Medicare for All to help small businesses more easily afford healthcare and a $15 minimum wage that would have brought so many struggling families back into the economy with an influx of new-found income being spent.

There’s a reason polls showed Bernie Sanders did better against Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton, and it’s not because he was “unknown” or “untested.”

Rather than tell voters that we can’t make radical change in this country, as Hillary Clinton did, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both promised to the nation they would make huge changes to the way our nation is run, and to shift more power back to the struggling worker class. As a result, Bernie did incredibly well with this group in the primary, and they were Donald Trump’s base in the general.

My aunt who voted for Trump in Ohio is not a racist. Her husband works in a factory now Chinese-owned, and it bounced around constantly from different ownership due to the economic struggles over the past decade. He was tired of the same-old same-old not doing anything for him, and Hillary Clinton didn’t promise anything for him. Donald Trump did.

So, how do we fix the Democratic Party?

Donald Trump affectionately called for his voters to “Drain the Swamp.” Honestly, to a certain extent that’s not that bad of an idea. If the Democratic Party’s establishment leadership is left unchallenged, we will see in 2020 a primary that consists of uninspiring centrists who will promise no bold change, only focus their campaign strategy on trying to tell the country how horrible the President is rather than talk about their bold visions.

So, how do we drain the swamp of the Democratic leadership? Here’s some ideas.

1) Fire Donna Brazile. I supported her during the primaries because in my opinion she was fair to both candidates on TV. However, the Wikileaks emails tell us that she was not independent, and did everything she could to kill Bernie’s chances. That’s not how a democratic election should be ran, and she should not be the DNC’s leader.

2) Replace her with Keith Ellison, who Bernie Sanders endorsed for the position. For the sake of our future, we can’t let the party put up a lobbyist, centrist politician, or a consultant. We need a bold, loud unifier that can help Democrats create a 50-state strategy and stop leaving red state Dem Parties feeling like they are on their own. Even further, this figure would have put party resources toward supporting Alan Grayson in Florida over party-swapping Patrick Murphy, who hilariously lost the election the moment the general campaign began.

3) Bernie Sanders needs to come back. I’m not saying he needs to run again, but Bernie Sanders needs to, along with Elizabeth Warren, fight back. Hard. When President Trump tries to do anything, we need Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren ready to fight immediately, filling up basketball arenas nationwide telling the American people what we can do to fix this. The successor organization Our Revolution is a great start, given that over 50% of it’s fielded candidates won their office. But right now, the American people are looking for a voice to stand with during what will be a frightening four years.

4) Bernie Sanders and / or Elizabeth Warren need to become the effective leader of the Democratic Party. And yes, that may mean Bernie has to change his party from Independent to Democrat. The Democrats don’t really have a leader right now. Sure, there are several Senators who are inspirational to a certain extent, but there is no national figure liked well enough to be regarded as a leader. Chuck Schumer, while popular in New York and Washington, D.C., isn’t the right fit. Neither is Nancy Pelosi. Barack Obama could be, but it’s not like he can run for President in 2020, and his “failures” — as Trump’s voters perceived his presidency to be full of - aren’t likely to win any of them back. Joe Biden sure could, but he has said he’s done with politics. The Clintons definitely can’t, given that that’s the reason they lost to Donald Trump. So, who’s left? Who can fill an arena inspiring our nation to not give up hope and to fight back and win?