The problem with that take is that labeling moms — many of whom had to drop out of the workforce to help their kids learn online, and who despair over the educational and emotional damage resulting from school closures — as racists is a recipe for losing power, not gaining it. Especially since many of them were Biden voters last year: The margin of white women in Virginia who voted for Biden swung 13 percentage points to Republican Glenn Youngkin. Then there is New Jersey. Were the voters who rejected the progressive Murphy racists too?

For all their foot stomping, progressives don’t seem to worry about politically consequential numbers — whether it’s the bad polls, the amount of seats the party is likely to lose, the number of their former voters crossing over to the GOP, and the 52% of voters who now want government to do less, according to Gallup. The map is also changing, with the GOP controlling 187 seats in redistricting to Democrats’ 75 seats, while 121 seats will be drawn by independent commissions. And the New York Times cited a Pew Research Center report from 2020 on Monday that showed the 19-point swing in rural America to Republicans from 1999 to 2019 is larger than the 14-point swing toward Democrats in cities over that same period, with the suburbs tied. More retirements are expected in suburban seats where Democrats recently beat Republicans, and the GOP is now targeting 70 Democratic incumbents next year. If the party doesn’t contest swing districts, and only represents urban America, it will be a minority party forever.

The establishment and leadership of the Democratic Party know all of this. So as progressives lash out at candidates and voters and keep making promises to “energize” the base, Democrats should bear in mind that prioritizing values or ideas voters don’t like, or passing programs they don’t want, can’t be called progress. Not if the goal is to win elections.