One thing I'm noticing - well, perceiving anyway - is that polarization, tribalism is intensifying on the left. The right definitely started it, and it took a while for the left to respond, but the left is starting to catch up. Supporting specific left wing (or right wing) causes - even adamantly - isn't what I'm talking about. I mean there's a growing tendency to box check, to litmus test. I'm seeing more left-on-left crime.
In 2016, the far left bitterly contested and protested the center left, but honestly, I think for the most part, most progressives fell into line. Some did not and because the race was so close, it cost Hillary, but I still felt like the progressive left was generally on-board with the idea of caucusing with the center left. I say that because the gains in 2018 and 2020 would not have been possible otherwise.
But the Supreme Court's decisions these last few years on things like abortion (obviously), gun control, administrative authority, the environment, student loans...the right-leaning Supreme Court has radicalized the left, and they are angry at centrists like Biden who still argue that it is still preferable to preserve institutional traditions/conventions/procedures such as the filibuster and to dismiss ideas like court packing. In short, the progressive left is tired of being hammered over the head with procedural warfare when Republicans seize power and hamstrung by institutional conventions when they're no longer in power. They want Democrats to do something - I absolutely do get it.
Tl/dr: Progressives are done with moderation and they're willing to lose elections to prove it. To use the communist analogy, this is where Marxist energy becomes Leninism and Trotskyism. They're done with evolution. They want revolution. The danger is that revolutions can fail, either because they crack up before they achieve any of their objectives, or even worse, they succeed in seizing some sort of power - either of the party or of the entire state itself - and go too far. I think it's more likely that they crack up the left before achieving anything, but I don't have a crystal ball obviously.
