Link  This article repeats the obvious, but surprising, case that political elites want to stay in power more than they want to help the people and causes that they profess to care about, such as affordable health care, higher education, jobs, unions, and avoiding global warming. Politicians fear newcomers. Politicians depend on their network of contacts, foundations, and corporations. They are threatened by being displaced by new politicians who bring their new values, networks, and funders. Some Democrats prefer to be in the minority losing the House, Senate, or the Presidency instead of having some new Democrats come to power.   David Sirota writes "The establishment media and the establishment wing of the Democratic Party is fundamentally threatened by Bernie Sanders' agenda. And I'm being objective. This isn't a value judgment. They don't like his agenda for a couple of reasons. One: his agenda is built on challenging corporate power and wealth, that is corporate power and wealth the establishment media and the establishment wing of the democratic party is built upon. It is their foundation. And there's a second tier of this which is that Bernie Sanders— beyond his ideology—also poses a fundamental threat to the career networks and relationships of people in The Establishment themselves especially within the Democratic Party circles. In other words, if you are at a think tank, let's use Neera Tanden because everybody knows her. I'm not saying this to pick on her, but if your entire career has been built on the Clinton Network—you were Hillary Clinton's top aide, you are at a think tank that is basically funded in part by Clinton-supporting donors—a Bernie Sanders presidency or, by the way, a presidency from somebody similarly outside of that system—doesn't matter that it's Bernie—a presidency like that would basically destroy your relevance and your career because your career is based on leveraging your relationships in the current system as it is now. So Sanders, his ideology threatens them, but also where he exists in politics is a threat to the literal careers and livelihood of people who make their careers and livelihood on the relationships tied to the current establishment of the Democratic Party."  All this said, the centrist Dems still are way better than the "let's grab everything we can" Republicans under  GW Bush and Trump.

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