For the past year, we have been talking about how this election year is going to tear the Republican Party into pieces. It was time, and many of you looked on in fascination as Donald Trump swung the wrecking ball that brought the rotting edifice down.

But if there is one thing clear after election night, it is that the Democratic Party has collapsed. The result was an embarrassment to a political establishment that curried favor with coastal urban progressives, forgetting its roots in labor and the working class. The Clinton Alignment, which saved the Democratic Party from ignominy in the early 1990s, is no longer able to sustain the party of Wilson and FDR.

But there is more to this than either the Democrats or the GOP.

For the first time since 1856, we have the opportunity to build one or more political parties utterly separate from the current two party organizations. We can build 21st Century political parties constructed around the things we all care about.

And we’d better do that soon. Because the alternative is chaos, and the empowerment of leaders who serve themselves, not the people.