Last night, voters delivered a stunning repudiation of Donald Trump, his Republican congressional enablers, and his reign of chaos, corruption, and calamity. Democrats won Senate seats in Texas, South and North Carolina, Kansas (for the first time in nearly a century), Iowa, and more. They won races where their candidates were outspent 10 to one and more. They elected the most diverse and populist candidates in memory—the first Gen Z woman in Congress, a DSA populist, and, to the Senate, the first Muslim, the first Native American woman, and the first openly gay male, as well as the first African American female governor ever, in Georgia of all places, the first Hispanic female governor in Texas, and more. They triumphed over Trump’s midterm reapportionment gambit and a record flood of money from billionaires and crypto, AI, and AIPAC lobbies.

In his sad and delusional closing argument to voters, delivered before the Reflecting Pool, the president boasted about his renovations of the pool, the golf course, the ballroom, and more, then asserted that “I’ve kept every single promise I made, except far more. I’ve actually kept more promises than I made.”

In fact, the stunning Democratic sweep was directly the result of promises broken—Trump’s campaign promises of no more wars, that prices would come down on day one, that tariffs would be paid by foreigners, that the crackdown on immigrants would target criminals, that he’d clean the swamp, that he’d protect Medicare and Social Security, and more.

Compared to 2024, the swing in votes toward Democrats went across the board, led by young men, plus 38; young voters generally, plus 32; Hispanics, plus 22; African Americans, plus 16; and white women, plus 11. MAGA hopes of a new enduring majority were shattered.

As Democrats recover from the celebration, there are clear lessons that should not be forgotten.

Movements matter. In this election, mobilization beat money; aroused and organized citizens beat billionaires. That began not with party operatives and pollsters but with citizen mobilizations. The No Kings marches that galvanized energy in the wake of Trump’s victory in 2024. The stunning Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “Fighting Oligarchs” tour that set the frame for campaigns from Texas to Maine. The courageous citizen response to the masked ICE thugs, most dramatically in Minneapolis, where citizens organized to protect their neighbors, doubling down even after ICE murdered two protesters.

Second, populism unites and galvanizes. For months, establishment Democrats took potshots at the left, even at the risk of reinforcing Trump’s poisonous assault on socialists, lunatic communists, and jihadist radicals taking over the Democratic Party. Bernie was too extreme; radicals were alienating Democratic donors. James Carville, featured on Democratic Party fundraising appeals calling this the most important election of our lifetimes, even opined that he’d rather Republicans have a small majority in the House than Democrats, who otherwise would have to deal with the left.

In any event, populist messages and populist candidates won—and defined the election. Democrats across the country argued that Trump and his cronies were cleaning up while people were hurting. It was James Talarico, now the youngest senator from Texas, framing his race as a question not of left or right but of bottom or top, people against billionaires. It was Dr. Annie Andrews, newly elected senator from South Carolina, running with the promise to indict Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his assault on public health. It was Gina Hinojosa, newly elected governor of Texas, making unaccountable AI and data centers and the money behind them a centerpiece of her campaign. It was Abdul El-Sayed, newly elected senator from Michigan, remaining focused on working people, campaigning unapologetically for Medicare for All and more. It was Troy Jackson in Maine campaigning on Medicare for All and on abolishing ICE.

“Affordability” was a Democratic mantra, dramatized by rising gas and crippling diesel fuel prices. Trump’s war of choice on Iran was largely the cause. Trump’s broken promise of no more wars was the modern equivalent of George H.W. Bush’s broken promise of no more taxes. Once more, Americans have voted overwhelmingly against foreign misadventures. Just as Vietnam destroyed Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, and the horrors in Gaza cost Biden and Harris in 2024, the Iran debacle was Trump’s most costly folly.

Democrats should not ignore this reality. Democrats would be wise to become the anti-war party. Americans overwhelmingly want their leaders to focus attention and resources at home and not continue to wage wars across the globe. The foreign policy establishment—the “Blob”—that constantly prioritizes America’s imperial role over the needs of its citizens needs to be retired from the halls of power, dispatched to monasteries and colleges to meditate on the error of its ways.