Progressives did quite a bit better in this past election than corporate Democrats. But I won’t argue that the establishment hasn’t been really successful at beating progressives in primaries. Besides being clearly true, it would hardly be fair to rob them of credit for the only thing they do well.

But, primaries are not the same as general elections. Money impacts both, but it impacts primaries far more. There is far less free media available, and name recognition can be impossible to build without it. There is also the myth that progressives can’t win general elections that makes voters reticent to nominate progressives. We see it over and over where the progressive platform is preferred, but the establishment candidate gets the nomination.

Cheap shots aside, any real analysis paints a very different picture. Establishment candidates do better when they lean left. Obama ran on “change” and won in a blowout. Then he went establishment and almost lost. Lucky for us the Republicans were only running establishment candidates against him. Hillary ran establishment vs right-populist and lost. Biden ran “progressive lite” against Trump’s “establishment lite” and barely won. Kamala went right against fascist-right and lost. See the pattern?