The losers dominate the soul-searching after every election. And the strategic, ideological, generational and even regional identity crises confronting the Democrats are all embodied in the pair of congressmen most overtly ready to springboard to the party’s dispirited national forefront after years as insider players.

Should Rep. Tim Ryan end up running a credible race for House minority leader in two weeks, even if he’s unsuccessful, that will be a sign the party is ready for a deal-making and somewhat centrist approach to the Trump administration.

Should Rep. Keith Ellison be chosen early next year as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, that will be a sign the party is going to be about resisting Donald Trump’s presidency at every opportunity while hewing emphatically to its liberal core.

Both of them winning, therefore, would be a remarkable acknowledgement of a Democratic schizophrenia that party leaders have been struggling to address for decades.

But if even one of them gets a partisan promotion, it would be a tangible sign that Democratic elders, concentrated for so long along the two deep-blue coasts, are ready to start yielding to the pent-up demand for more power from younger politicians hailing from the nation’s newly purple heartland.