I remember the 2016 Democratic National Convention well, because it was the first moment it hit me that Hillary Clinton might actually lose.

The preceding year, after all, had doggedly failed to follow the script liberal elites had etched in their heads since the beginning of 2015, wherein a Clinton juggernaut would effortlessly steamroll the competition and cruise to an easy victory before Nevada. Instead, the improbable insurgency led by Bernie Sanders had played the party establishment right until the final whistle. In what was supposed to be a grand coronation, the only self-described socialist in the United States Congress had taken on the most powerful political machine in modern history and finished with more than thirteen million votes.

Clinton wouldn’t have her anticipated opponent either. In a presidential race widely expected to feature two orthodox, Beltway-friendly figures, developments on the Republican side had also thrown every pundit prediction for a loop. Jeb Bush, supposedly a shoe-in for the GOP nomination thanks to a slew of early endorsements and a campaign war chest that could have buried El Dorado, won only three delegates at a cost of $53 million apiece. In both form and content, Donald Trump’s victory seemed to have shattered every axiom of established political common sense — his quixotic venture succeeding despite relentless media censure and official condemnation from nearly every leader of the so-called conservative movement.