People are tired of the rage Olympics, he believes, and they know in their guts it’s not working. He thinks they want something else.“If you promise people that you are going to give everybody in America Medicare, that you are not going to have to raise taxes, that you’re not going to have to cut healthcare massively, that 180 million people, 80 percent of whom like their insurance are going to be willing to give it up, 20 million…” Bennet says, trailing off. “It is possible to write policy proposals that have no basis in reality, and you might as well call them candy. That’s what people want, as the song said, but I think that’s not where people are, I don’t think people believe that stuff. I think they want to see a serious approach to politics and a serious approach to policy.”

The noisiest voices in the party want Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. They want to answer Mitch McConnell’s Merrick Garland blockade by packing the Supreme Court and getting rid of the filibuster entirely. Learn the lessons of dealing with Republicans in modern politics, they say. Stop showing up to gun fights waving copies of Robert’s Rules of Order. It’s the way, they say, to ensure Democrats keep losing even when they win.