Unless the investigations into the criminality of the 2016 election campaign produce something well beyond the extraordinary that they already have produced, Hillary Clinton is not going to be president. Ever. A poll last September showed that both Clinton and her 2016 primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, remain very popular among base Democratic voters, who want both to remain politically active. But the same poll showed that only a small minority of Democratic partisans want either to run again for president. But Sanders seems intent on doing so. Clinton does not. As is so often the case, here, too, she knows what she is doing.

The Democratic Party's bench of established, next-generation political leaders is deep, and only getting deeper. And depending on upcoming gubernatorial elections in California and Georgia, it may get deeper still. The 2020 Democratic primaries almost certainly will see the widest, deepest, most talented, most diverse assembly of candidates in our nation's history. If the republic survives the Republican Party's assiduous efforts to undermine its very ability to function as a republic, Democrats have a lot to look forward to both this election year and in 2020. It doesn’t need to look back for candidates, and that includes Clinton, Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, or former Secretary of State John Kerry.

For upcoming elections, it is time for the Democratic Party to look to the future. But that doesn't mean the party or the nation would benefit from turning their backs on the wisdom of the Democratic Party’s political elders.

If anyone has learned anything over the past year, it should begin with the basic idea that in politics, as in any professional career, experience matters. High-level politics isn't for amateurs. Even the brightest, most talented leaders of the present and future benefit when they seek the counsel of those who came before them. And less than a handful of political leaders in this country have more knowledge and experience than Hillary Clinton. This should be obvious. The need for her continuing contributions should be obvious. It’s both astonishing and appalling that it should even be questioned.

Biden and Sanders both have run for president before, neither achieved anything close to the success of Hillary Clinton, and both seem to be running for president again. But no one is telling them to go away. Some may consider their candidacies ill-advised, but no one is telling them to shut up and disappear. Mitt Romney also ran for president, and also didn't fare nearly as well as Clinton, but he is being welcomed back to politics as a Senate candidate, and in the minds of the duped and deluded, as a possible check on the depredations of Trump. No one is telling him to go away. Rick Santorum was electorally pummeled out of his Senate seat, losing his final campaign by more than 17 points, twice ran for president as barely a blip on the radar screen, and not only is no one telling him to go away, but despite having no constituency and despite holding political opinions that even in the Trump era are on the frothy fringe of the fringe, he's actually considered a senior political analyst at CNN.

Of all the defeated former presidential candidates, only Hillary Clinton is being told to disappear. Only Hillary Clinton is being told what to do, period. Despite having received 65 million votes, despite having received nearly 3 million more votes than the man who gets to play president, despite having received more votes than anyone not named Obama ever, only she is told her presence and contributions are not wanted. Why would that be? What could it possibly be? Joe, Bernie, Mitt, Rick, and others are welcome, but Hillary isn't. Why?

Hillary Clinton warned us about Trump's corruption and Russian ties. She warned us about the true nature of his supporters. She wanted to raise the minimum wage, empower unions, reform immigration, expand Obamacare, address climate change, overturn Citizens United, enact gun regulation, and actually fund actual infrastructure construction and renovation, but apparently those issues don't matter anymore. She has worked in the political arena for nearly 50 years, starting with voting rights and protecting at-risk children, and she is as steeped in the details of as wide a range of policies as anyone alive. With a current administration that sees politics primarily as a means to personal enrichment, for decades Clinton has personified the apparently now-quaint ideal of public servant. And she is being told to go away.

We live in dangerous times. The rule of law is being undermined by a political party that has grown so extreme that in a democratically elected republic it would be demographically doomed, so it is openly undermining the very foundations of democracy and republic themselves. This country needs leaders who understand and respect democracy and republic. This country needs leaders who respect science and facts and experience, and who can explain the issues and how politics should address them. This country need leaders whose lives and careers are examples of what public service means. Some of those leaders do and will hold elective office. Some will be teachers and mentors and advisers and activists. The latter often do at least as much to enact positive change as the former.

In the late summer of 2016, with Trump foundering in the polls, the media spent a month trying to concoct a scandal out of the Clinton Foundation, which holds the highest ratings from charity watchdogs, and which has provided access to health care and medicines to millions of people, saving many of their lives. But pundits were claiming that if Hillary Clinton were elected president, the Clinton Foundation would have to be shut down. In recent months, as the Trump administration and the media have largely ignored hurricane-battered Puerto Rico, the Clinton Foundation has been there, helping build a new, renewable energy grid, making a real difference in people’s lives. In the Trump era, just helping people, just doing good for the sake of doing good, defines real resistance.

This nation and this world don’t need less of Hillary Clinton.

They need more.