Populism need not be Right Wing. Dems can ride the wave, or be drowned by it.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. We've differed about Sanders for a very long time, I know.

I am a Democrat, and a former chair of our Town's Democratic Committee. I see great value in supporting a large effective institution with the heft and capacity to effect change on the national level, and the Democratic Party qualifies as that. But every individual voter has their personal life story, belief system, and reason for voting the way that they do each and every time that they vote. Less than a third of American voters identify themselves as Democrats.

Traditional, established mainstream parties throughout the western world and beyond have largely been in decline for decades as more and more so called regular voters abandon them in search of something different from the social order that they increasingly believe has failed them. Democrats need to either adjust or recede in the face of such a sustained storm. My point here has little to do with Bernie Sanders specifically. Whether you see him as a positive change element or not, his rise in popularity is symptomatic of something deeper.