This week proves that Beatty had something dead right about the soul of the Democratic party after Clinton. Facing a period of reflection following humiliating rejection by the voters, their reaction is: We lost because we were too much like our opponents. We must fight the urge to be moderate, temperate, and civil. We must stop mincing words and go full Bulworth. At a peak moment in the movie, Bulworth raps the words, “Socialism! Socialism!”

After the 2016 wipeout that put the Republican party in the best position it has enjoyed since the period following the election of 1928, the Democrats have made no effort to moderate their stances to appeal to swing voters. Instead the party derides the voters who rejected it and turns more and more to its base; it speaks only to and for the engaged and fired-up primary voter it thinks represents a typical American. But that base not only thinks Bill Clinton was too moderate, it thinks Barack Obama blew it by being accommodating instead of angry with Republicans.