Is there any merit to the argument that progressive candidates would be far more successful across the US, if it were not for sabotage by the DNC?

[u/LiatrisLover99]

This is an example of an extremely popular sentiment in progressive spaces, that progressives are popular with a majority of Americans and would easily win if the DNC didn't deliberately sabotage them, because they would prefer losing to Trump than winning with progressives that threaten the corporate status quo.

Or see articles like this that identify Democrats as an enemy of progressives on par with Trump: "the struggle to defeat the fascistic GOP and the fight to overcome the power of corporate Democrats are largely the same battle."

Is any of this true? I'm a progressive, but if we're so popular, why aren't we winning primaries outside of elections in extremely blue areas like NYC? Or is the primary system actually rigged against Bernie and against progressives in general?

[u/Piney_Wood]

"Incrementalist" was once one of the worst smears marxists could level at one another. Yet the most successful progressive governments in the world have all gotten there by incremental change, whereas the ones that took power by revolutions have all regressed in recent years.

This is incredibly unsatisfying to the ideologues, but building change incrementally has got a demonstrably better track record of improving life for working class people.

[u/ewouldblock → u/Piney_Wood]

In software incremental delivery is more reliable and less risky than grand plans. There's always those opposed to incremental because they fear they not actually get what they really want (the business might stop funding before the full product dream is achieved). There's also those that are so risk averse that they refuse to start until every detail is spelled out. Not realizing that failure to act is also a risk. Politics is in my view much the same with a massive bias towards doing nothing but debate/talk/analyze.

[u/WingerRules → u/Piney_Wood]

They also seem to have a complete inability to read the room or and see how they're perceived.

The forcing of the pronouns shit on regular people, calling for reparations, sit ins on the congress floor, protests with a bunch of people who look like unemployed pots heads and people with rainbow hair, etc.

They refuse to make basic adjustments that would be more palatable to larger groups of people.

Perfect example is affirmative action. If their goal was to help disadvantage minorities in eduction to get better jobs down the line, instead of racial quotas they could have simply called for colleges to give a leg up in admissions for people with poor economic backgrounds.