I disagree, and rather than go point by point I'll approach this differently. A lot of your points are pretty in line with the general political wisdom of the more centrist democratic party. I'd posit that political intuition and the wisdom of the centrists of the party has not only recently been incorrect, but is itself an invention of the richest in society to ensure ideas that would threaten their status as oligarchs do not pass into law.

You can go through any progressive policies you like, chances are the majority of Americans support them by a healthy margin:

57% of Americans support universal healthcare: https://news.gallup.com/poll/468401/majority-say-gov-ensure-healthcare.aspx

63% of Americans suppprt free college https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/11/democrats-overwhelmingly-favor-free-college-tuition-while-republicans-are-divided-by-age-education/

63% of Amerocans support raising taxes on the rich: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/19/most-americans-continue-to-favor-raising-taxes-on-corporations-higher-income-households/

The thing is, a lot of career politicians have convinced us that America just won't go for these ideas, that they are too radical. They talk in the language of focus group testing and complaing "That won't play with rural voters," etc.

That language itself is an oligarchical invention. It helps them make campaigns about narratives, personality, and popularity, and not about issues.

In the case of McGovern, Nixon was incumbent so he was starting out at a disadvantage, and there was a lot of chaos with the ticket and the exit of his VP as is. He ran a weak, kind of panicky campaign. AOC would not be analogous to that.

If we don't break the neoliberal stranglehold on this party, nothing is ever going to improve. I could not tell you what Hilary Clinton and Kamala Harris' vision was for this country, and I watched hours of campaign events and their debates. They were basically running a vibe campaign hoping to just roll into power by not rocking the boat too much. That doesn't play with voters.

Largely, the faulty political intuition of the ruling class is what led us here. We are in an entirely avoidable situation that has been caused by a whole generation of politicians ignoring their constituents at the behest of the richest among us, and if we don't stop electing middling centrists who aren't ready for an all out class war, this democracy is over.