The Democrats have turned to infighting very quickly following the election, essentially recognizing what Mitt Romney stated, the electorate voted for the center. "Progressives" are being blamed by other members of the party for a poor showing overall.
The party really misread where the electorate was going, and not for the first time. The punditry did as well, which in some ways excuses the failure. Basically, the really left wing candidates that rose up in 2018 have turned out not to represent a massive shift in the electorate's views, irrespective of what the punditry thought, and to some extent still thinks.
This happened to the Democrats in the years prior to Barack Obama's election as well, and the fact that they restrained their most left leaning candidates and positions in that period help explains President Obama's election. Following Donald Trump's election, however, the leftward side of the party staged what amounted to an uprising. It hoped to really do well in this election and really bring in the full sweep of its views. That now appears unlikely to happen and the center of the Democratic Party is blaming the progressive for the loss of a seat in the House and the failure, so far, to take the Senate.
One thing this may due is to cause the stars of the Progressive movement to fade, and perhaps by their own acts. The most well known of the group, AOC, has lamented that she may quit politics altogether.
But I’m serious when I tell people the odds of me running for higher office and the odds of me just going off trying to start a homestead somewhere — they’re probably the same.
It's hard to imagine her as a "homesteader", but being a bit more humble might serve their cause quite a bit better than the bull in the china shop approach taken so far.
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