Still, as much as I oppose the idea of Avenatti running for president, disagree with his analysis, and understand why many found his remarks self-serving, I am confounded by the intensity of the backlash among some progressives, because Avenatti’s thinking flowed from premises that many of them insist upon and that almost no one in their coalition sees as being beyond the pale. He simply took them to their logical, and objectionable, conclusion.

Insofar as Democrats are persuaded that America is a white-supremacist patriarchy, that racism and sexism were the decisive factors costing Democrats the 2016 election, and that fascism is nigh, you can see how they would conclude that a Cory Booker or Elizabeth Warren can’t really best Trump, or would face much longer odds than a white man, and that winning should be the priority.

Conjure in your mind an institutionally racist, white-supremacist patriarchy. Does its popularly elected president look like Kamala Harris?

I don’t buy these premises, though.