The Bernie and Hillary wing have to come together or the Republicans will win. So are articles like this helpful? It depends, if you are the type that accepts money in politics and apologizes for candidates that take it, you see the never-Hillary voter as a lunatic fringe. (I held my nose and voted for her). But the reality is that the non-voters and protest voters cost the election because the race was so tight.

So what to do — should we try to convince them to accept money in politics as inevitable? Not in my view. Now that Hillary is out of the picture and a firestorm erupts any time a prominent Democratic carries water for a corporate donor, we’ve passed a threshold.

The painful lesson of 2016 was that Wall Street ties and dark money HURT the Democrats. The swing voter was NOT forced to vote Hillary out of fear of Trump. Even now, the dog donors are trying to get a Cory Booker or Kirsten Gillibrand to resume business as usual. The sad truth is that they don’t care if Democrats win or lose, they just want to block democratic socialism.

So I would take seriously the idea that we must get corporate/PAC money out of the Democratic Party. Bernie raised $230 million in small donations so it is not only possible to compete without the dirty money, it is the only way to improve our country. If the Democrats make the same mistake they made in 2016, it will be because they really aren’t listening and don’t care if they lose because their consolation prize is campaign cash and the corporate revolving door.