In the superb film The Dark Knight, directed by Christopher Nolan, the Gotham mafia, in its fear of the Batman, turned to a man they didn’t understand in the form of Heath Ledger’s “Joker” to solve their problem for them.

What resulted is a collapse of not only the mafia’s systematic hold on Gotham and its subsequent collapse due to the treacherous machinations of The Joker, but the city itself was thrown into a chaotic turmoil that it had never experienced before, even under the rule of the mafia.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the Democrats courted the radicalism within their own party, amping up the ideological extremism after the loss of Hillary Clinton. In their fear and hatred of Donald Trump, they too turned to a figure they didn’t fully understand, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

AOC brought the Democrat’s radicalism into the party with fanfare most Democrats only dream of. She had all the right requirements for media worship. She was young, idealistic, attractive, and a woman of color. She could do no wrong, and anyone who said as much could easily be written off as jealous, sexist, racist, or whatever excuse was needed at the time.

Soon, however, Ocasio-Cortez began taking over the very party that had welcomed her in. She and her gang, the Justice Democrats, threatened to remove more moderate incumbent Democrats, and replace them radicals like herself. She threatened to “run train” on the Democrat’s agenda as well. Needless to say, various parts of the Democrat party were angered, including minority caucuses.

What’s more, is that Ocasio-Cortez’s radicalism has made infected other parts of the Democrat party. Her Green New Deal, which has rightly been found as absurd by many in America, had supporters within the party, some of them being 2020 presidential hopefuls such as Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Robert “Beto” O’Rourke.

In the midst of the radical takeover of the party sits Nancy Pelosi, who sees 2020 looming ahead, and the White House up for grabs. She’s watching as the Democrats continue to throw their support behind radicals like Ocasio-Cortez, and has to move to do damage control as freshman Democrats like Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar continue to drag the Democrats down with anti-semitism. She does this as she attempts to downplay things like the Green New Deal by laughing it off and calling it by a wrong name as if it were dismissable trash.

She understands that the American voters don’t really sign on to that kind of radicalism. All the while, a new figure has appeared that could threaten the Democrats even more in the form of former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

In the face of radicals such as Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, or O’Rourke, many Democrats choose a man who can play to both Democrat and Republican sensibilities within moderate America. This two-faced approach to politics looks miles beyond reasonable to the Democrats, a third of which said they’re willing to jump ship in favor of Schultz.

Only Joe Biden consistently polls well enough to to be Trump’s bane, who is already starting to get the nods from old school Democrats like Dianne Feinstein.

Still, Democrats have voiced their anger that Biden doesn’t fit the new Democrat party’s optics. He’s too white and too male according to Democrat lawmakers like Kirsten Gillibrand and strategists like Seth Bringman, who believe promoting someone like Biden would be a step backward for the party.

At some point, one of two things is going to have to happen. Either the fresh crop of radical Democrats are going to have to voluntarily bend to Pelosi’s and the Democratic leadership’s will, and present a unified front against the increasingly unified Republicans. This will mean an embrace of Democrats like Biden, who will garner a more wide-ranging approval across the left, though he falls short of radical expectations within the Democrat party.

Or, a war between the new school Democrats and the old school Democrats will have to occur for control of the party. As it stands, Ocasio-Cortez is defying leadership by saying she’s “proud” of antisemitic statements from Omar despite Pelosi’s attempts at damage control. The New York democratic socialist has also exhibited her willingness to spit in the face of leadership in the past by opposing Pelosi’s PAYGO bill.

The safe bet is that a fight is brewing, and Pelosi would be smart to have this fight sooner than later. Nothing short of the White House is on the line.