“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”
- Barack Obama to bank CEOs in 2009 (he sure protected them)
I'm only half kidding with the title here. No, I don't think establishment Democrats are actually trying to lose, but I agree with the sentiment that they'd rather continue to lose to Donald Trump with someone like Hillary Clinton, than win with someone like Bernie Sanders.
The fight within the Democratic Party is very real and ultimately comes down to two groups with completely different understandings of reality. The big donor, Wall Street side of the party still wants to claim everything's normal and fine with the exception of Donald Trump. As soon as he can be removed we can all go back to American exceptionalism; or something like that. Easy peasy. In contrast, the other side acknowledges things are very, very rotten and huge change is imperative. To summarize, one side wants to go right back to the Presidency of Barack Obama (with some added militarism), while the other is saying the status quo needs to go.
Forget for a moment what you think of leftist populist ideas, they're at least willing to admit our country is systemically broken and corrupt, while the other blames everything on Trump and Russia. This isn't a minor difference within a happy marriage, it's the sort of conflict that ends in divorce. We remain in a justifiably populist moment in American history, and corporate Democrats want to fight right-populism with Hillary Clintonism. That's never going to work.
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