In an OP/ED, Bernie Sanders notes that the people supporting a bold progressive agenda won while the conservative careerists lost:

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Now, with the blame game erupting, corporate Democrats are attacking so-called far-left policies like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal for election defeats in the House and the Senate. They are dead wrong.

Here are the facts:

• 112 co-sponsors of Medicare for All were on the ballot in November. All 112 of them won their races.
• 98 co-sponsors of the Green New Deal were on the ballot in November. Only one of them have lost an election.

It turns out that supporting universal health care during a pandemic and enacting major investments in renewable energy as we face the existential threat to our planet from climate change is not just good public policy. It also is good politics. According to an exit poll from Fox News, no bastion of socialism, 72% of voters favored the change “to a government-run health care plan” and 70% of voters supported “increasing government spending on green and renewable energy.”

The lesson is not to abandon popular policies like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, living wage jobs, criminal justice reform and universal child care, but to enact an agenda that speaks to the economic desperation being felt by the working class — Black, white, Latino, Asian American and Native American. People are hurting, and they are crying out for help. We must respond.

The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has been aggressively recruiting candidates with no moral compass beyond political careerism.

It works for the political consultants, because these folks spend their time and effort on fund raising rather than policy,  which means that there is more money going to the consultants, but it also means that at best the Democratic Party is a bunch of folks who don’t do anything.

It doesn’t win elections, and it does not benefit the republic.