In the race for the Democratic nomination, one figure towers above the field: the large, misshapen form of President Donald Trump. The trauma of Trump’s shock victory in November 2016, and the reign of greed, brutality, and arrogance that has followed — seemingly impervious to organized opposition — has given Trump a special standing among Democrats.

The polls are unanimous: a healthy majority of Democratic primary voters (between 60 and 65 percent) say that it is more important to find a candidate who can beat Trump than one who they agree with on the issues. This is not a standard view for voters opposed to an incumbent president. On the eve of his 2004 re-election campaign, for instance, fewer than half of all Democrats said the same about George W. Bush.

Across the primary campaign, Bernie Sanders and many of his supporters have argued that it is not enough to defeat Trump: we need to organize to transform the abysmal economic conditions that produced Trump, too. This is all very true.