There are lots of reasons why everything went wrong for Democrats on Election Day: Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had an economic message that, it turns out, fizzled where it mattered most. Her team trusted in data that was bogus.

The FBI, maliciously or not, put its fingers on the electoral scales. A foreign power mucked about in an area in which Clinton was already vulnerable, those damned emails.

There was plenty of sexism. Racism too. And it all led to an Electoral College nightmare, wherein a comfortable popular vote win was coupled with an emphatic electoral vote loss.

Were this a perfect world, Democrats and the wider left would have time to sift through the rubble and figure out exactly what went wrong and correct it for next time. But this isn't a perfect world. President-elect Donald Trump is bringing white nationalism right into the White House. His team has floated warmonger John Bolton for secretary of state, and Rudy Giuliani, who has gone from America's mayor to a Fox News cartoon character, is in the mix for a cabinet position too.

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It's game time, in other words. Hence the heartening sight of Democrats coalescing around Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the face of the party's messaging and organizing. Ellison formally announced his candidacy for the job on Monday, and he's already earned the backing of current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and incoming leader Chuck Schumer, as well as the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren is going to be driving the Democratic bus for a while. The Hill called Ellison "the early favorite" in the race to head the committee.

"It is not enough for Democrats to ask for voters' support every two years. We must be with them through every lost paycheck, every tuition hike, and every time they are the victim of a hate crime," Ellison said in a statement. "When voters know what Democrats stand for, we can improve the lives of all Americans, no matter their race, religion or sexual orientation. To do that, we must begin the rebuilding process now."

There's certainly symbolic value to having Ellison head the DNC in the age of Trump. As a black, Muslim progressive from the Midwest, his ideological leanings nod to the problems Democrats had in 2016 but without backing down on their embrace of diversity and inclusivity.

But I like the notion of him at the helm for reasons that aren't symbolic: He was one of the few who saw the Trump phenomenon coming. We all should have listened.

It was during a July 2015 episode of ABC's "This Week." "This man has got some momentum," Ellison said, referring to Trump. "And we'd better be ready for the fact that he might be leading the Republican ticket."

His co-panelists laughed. "I know you don't believe that," said host George Stephanopoulos.

Who's laughing now?

There are definitely other qualified candidates in the mix. Labor Secretary Tom Perez is reportedly considering a bid, as is former Maryland Gov. and presidential candidate Martin O'Malley, who ran the Democratic Governors Association with mixed results. Howard Dean, too, has decided to put his hat into the ring, because apparently some folks think a mid-aughts redux is just what Democrats need right now.

But the party needs to move on from the Clinton era, and with Obama necessarily playing nice with the Trump transition team, someone not from his orbit being at the forefront of the effort would be a bonus as well. Those who helm the party from here should mix a new version of populism with an acknowledgment that the country is indeed changing in irreversible ways, even if the forces for holding back that change managed to win a victory recently.

The mistake Democrats could make as a reaction to Trump is to accept that their dilemma is the one posed in a Politico article on Tuesday: "The issue of whether to re-engage the young voters and minorities who elected President Obama to two terms but didn't turn out for Clinton, or reach out to the disaffected white working class voters who swung to Trump, is too pressing to be avoided."