There’s a sobering moment in one of Stuart Hall’s reflections on Margaret Thatcher’s triumph. “History,” he lamented, “is not waiting in the wings to catch up your mistakes into another ‘inevitable success.’ You lose because you lose because you lose.” The bleakness was blinding. No future seemed possible. Thatcher’s Conservative Party’s vote share grew from 35 percent in 1974 to nearly 44 percent in 1979 in the face of rising unemployment. She was not just winning over an electorate; she was leading the creation of a new one.

But Hall didn’t collapse into despair. “Hegemony,” he said, “is not a state of grace which is installed forever.” For the Left to get back on track, however, it would be necessary to listen closely to what the electorate was communicating, attempting to understand the mood and ideas that had taken hold.

To organize a workplace, to bring masses into union halls and onto the streets, to prevent or reverse the rise of someone like Thatcher requires engaging with people who are often contradictory and ambivalent, partly with you but also potential enemies, with all kinds of thoughts in their heads that don’t necessarily seem to fit together. The “right” words, slogans, and policies are not enough because those things are aimed at moving targets. Attention and patient recalibration are in order.