The Democratic Party could even now be comfortably riding the populist wave. Instead, we are drowning in party radicals.

The party establishment stopped Sanders twice. It did not stop the movement behind him — and its new leaders may prove much harder to manage.

Which means, Democratic leaders may eventually look back on Bernie Sanders not as the beginning of their party’s radicalization, but as their last opportunity to contain it.

In 2016, Sanders caught the same populist wave that carried Donald Trump through the Republican primaries. Both men recognized that voters were angry with political institutions, suspicious of concentrated power and tired of being told that the economy was working when their own experiences suggested otherwise.

Republicans reluctantly allowed their insurgency to reach its natural conclusion. Democrats did everything possible to prevent theirs.

The Democratic National Committee was supposed to be neutral, and it plainly was not. Leaked emails revealed officials disparaging Sanders and discussing ways to damage him. The DNC later apologized, while Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned. Donna Brazile subsequently disclosed an extraordinary financial arrangement that had given the Clinton campaign substantial influence over the cash-strapped committee before the nomination was settled.

The machinery may not have manufactured Clinton’s victory, but it was clearly working for her.

Four years later, Sanders appeared poised to try again. He won New Hampshire, finished effectively tied in Iowa and crushed the field in Nevada. Party leaders feared that a self-described democratic socialist was pulling away.

Then came South Carolina and the remarkable consolidation before Super Tuesday. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar withdrew and endorsed Joe Biden almost simultaneously, unifying the moderate vote. That was not cheating. 

Not exactly.

But it was tricky coalition politics, assisted by the Democratic establishment’s powerful desire to stop Sanders. Biden surged, Sanders stalled, and the threat appeared to have been contained.

It had only been postponed.

Sanders was, by the standards of political insurgents, remarkably manageable. He had served in Congress for decades. He understood institutions, compromise and personal loyalty. Twice he endorsed the candidate who defeated him. He campaigned for Clinton and Biden, urged his supporters to vote Democratic and signed the party’s required pledge affirming that he would run and serve as a Democrat. Sanders called for a political revolution, but when defeated, he did not mount an independent candidacy that could have destroyed the party’s presidential nominee.

The next generation may not be so accommodating.

Democratic Socialists of America has grown from a marginal organization into a meaningful electoral force. Politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani have shown that candidates can build their own audiences, fundraising networks and activist operations without depending upon the traditional party establishment. Online figures such as Hasan Piker can reach millions of young voters while remaining almost completely beyond the control of Democratic leaders.

This emerging left is less sentimental about the Democratic Party than Sanders was. Its members frequently regard establishment Democrats not as imperfect allies but as obstacles. They are deeply hostile to Israel, distrustful of capitalism and increasingly willing to punish Democrats who deviate from movement orthodoxy. Even AOC has faced DSA rebellion for attempting to operate within ordinary congressional politics.

The party therefore faces the worst of both worlds. It absorbed enough of Sanders’s language and policies to move sharply left, but it never fully incorporated the movement that produced them. That movement continued developing outside the party’s disciplinary structure, where influencers, activist organizations and small-dollar donors — not the DNC — decide who possesses legitimacy.

Had Sanders won the nomination in 2016 or 2020, he might have lost the general election. He might also have won. Either result would at least have forced democratic socialism to assume responsibility for governing, coalition-building and electoral consequences. Moderate Democrats could have tempered a Sanders administration, while Sanders could have connected the progressive movement to the institutional party.

Instead, Democratic leaders kicked the confrontation down the road. They defeated the candidate without defeating his diagnosis of American politics. They denied his supporters control of the party while giving them more reasons to despise its leadership.

Now the populist left is returning with younger leaders, independent media systems and fewer institutional loyalties. Its future presidential candidates may refuse to endorse the winner, sign a DNC loyalty pledge or rule out an independent campaign. Unlike the courteous, experienced Sanders, they may not accept that unity requires them to surrender after every disputed primary.

Establishment Democrats once treated Bernie Sanders as their worst-case scenario. Before long, they may remember him as the reasonable one — the revolutionary who still played by the rules.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)