New members of the D.S.A., most of them millennials, have instinctively recognized the need for radical wealth redistribution, forming what the group’s national director, Maria Svart, calls “the left wing of the resistance.”

The D.S.A. — which isn’t a political party — has supported some left-wing candidates across the country, from the Brooklyn City Council to a Virginia House race. But even as it is willing to work with some Democratic candidates or with Democrats on specific issues, its focus is pushing a broader agenda for equality, such as making the case for single-payer health care, while criticizing capitalism itself for driving upward redistribution of wealth. That might make some traditional liberals and Democrats uncomfortable, but in order to resist Mr. Trump, we ought to be thinking about how we ended up with a yawning wealth gap in the first place.

If the resistance is going to turn into a vital, sustainable left-wing social movement, it has to build strong relationships and share its resources with the people who are most affected by oppressive economic policies, sexism, xenophobia and racism.

“I come from a people who’ve been resisting for the past several centuries in this country,” Charlene Carruthers told me recently when we discussed activism since the election. Ms. Carruthers is the national director of Black Youth Project 100, a racial justice organization for black youth founded in Chicago and active in a dozen states. The best first step after a shock like the election isn’t just to throw yourself into a churn of activity, Ms. Carruthers said, but to “listen to the people who aren’t shocked.”

Among the many activists I’ve spoken with in recent weeks, racial justice organizers have been the most nonplused about liberals’ newfound sense of urgency. Many of the people they see taking stands against Mr. Trump are the same who have shown little respect for their issues and communities in the past. Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, is a perfect example: He declared his city a “Trump-free zone” after the president’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It might be good optics, but his mayorship has been anything but progressive on issues like policing, labor unions and schools.

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THE ELECTION HAS GALVANIZED activists of all kinds. After Hillary Clinton’s poor performance with working-class white voters, many on the left have realized that this constituency deserves more of its attention. I spoke recently to Kate Hess Pace, who founded Hoosier Action in her home state of Indiana, a membership organization for working-class Indianans who, with the decline of unions, have few ways of influencing politics. The group has brought members to Washington to lobby their senators on health care, among other actions. Ms. Pace says that most of the people she talks to in Indiana don’t hate Democrats or Republicans, but “outsiders,” people in Washington who have caused their state’s decline.

Some new members of the resistance may have people they can turn to easily for guidance: their kids. The radical movements calling attention to inequality and racism well before Mr. Trump’s election — from Occupy to the movement for black lives to a growing interest in socialism to the Dreamers protests — have been driven by millennials. And these movements are eager to grow.