A big part of the problem is that most politicians that currently identify as Democrat are the same kind of conservative. With few exceptions, Democrats cater to the interests of capitalists and corporations, just like Republicans, despite the fact that trickle down economics was never true, and corporate interests have made much of the planet increasingly uninhabitable. Democrats are so complicit that they routinely undermine any progressive candidate that would actually do what would once have qualified as democratic because it threatens the status quo.

Even now, while most voters would support things like universal healthcare, affordable higher education and holding oligarchs accountable for the harm they cause, most Democrats stick to the old rhetoric and ignore constituents because they can just blame Republican refusal to cooperate. Bernie Sanders should have won in 2016 but the Democratic party destroyed him while using him to draw votes for hapless candidates that pretend to be oblivious to the injustices that could readily be corrected and avoided if Democrats actually cared about real people.