This is the thing. People like to blame Berniebros and whatnot for Clinton’s loss in '16, but the reality is that the centrist Democrats that vote for the party’s corporate-backed candidate wouldn’t vote for a progressive one, so even if Bernie had won the nomination, he probably still would have lost because he would have lost the support of these DNC hardliners. I heard people literally say in '16 that if Bernie had somehow won the nomination over Hillary that they would have just stayed home. It’s wild to think how ideologically balkanized the Democratic party is, with so many people fervently belonging to the leftist minority that holds their nose every election to vote for another mediocre person whose best attributes are being “not an outright fascist” versus the people who will never vote for a truly left wing candidate because they’re fiscally conservative but socially liberal and just allergic to compromising in the same way that they’ve forced the leftists in their party to do since forever.
Democrats are so ego driven that they think death itself cannot claim them at a moment’s notice. I think this is part of the facade of the Democrats people are, unfortunately, going to respond to this election: Democrats, as a party, like to present themselves as being all about compromise and caring. Getting things done for the #AmericanPeople. But when it’s time to step down and let others shine in the limelight because you’ve had your time and the physical realities of age are something you have to acknowledge, or when there might be a better candidate for an election and you have to make the difficult choice of not getting what you want for the good of the country, that fucking sentiment disappears like a fart in the wind.