I think there would be a lot fewer people sounding like Lauren if the push for Biden in the primaries had not been so arrogant and heavy-handed, and if the word "socialism" had not been shouted with such vicious, withering contempt by those insisting that Biden had to be the nominee. It's a destructive tradition that goes back decades in the Democratic Party, this overbearing insistence on the party of party insiders that everything progressives wanted was ridiculous and impossible, coupled with an equally overbearing insistence that progressives owed the party their support to "stop THEM".

The party has had almost four years to learn from what happened in 2016 and to find a positive way to engage with progressives and meet them halfway. For that almost four years, the party has consistently said "nothing doing-we won't change at all". Were it not for Covid, that strategy would have doomed us to a massive defeat this year.

As it is, if Dems DO take the White House this year, it will be in spite of the nasty way the party has treated progressive insurgents, not because of it.