Democrats need a multiracial coalition. Warren needs to make connections to non-white activists.

Wasn't there a wonkish, pragmatic guy named Clinton who got elected twice? Didn't Obama have to fight against folks who suggested that he face a Primary challenge in 20012 because they were looking for a firebrand?

I'm not disagreeing with what you say, especially heart over mind, but just a comment before tackling the projects of the day.

When you make the comparisons between now and then, isn't context a crucial element:?

Then: an abject survival of the fittest, almost no safety net or health care, daily confrontation with life threats.

Now: it is survival of the fittest, but not to the same degree. Millennials are living with parents, not selling apples.

Then: What was real, was real.

Now: Our society is dominated by pop culture and reality shows and Trump is a facilitator.  You might call that speaking to the heart. Or not.

So when a Progressive today speaks to the heart---getting underneath the faux culture inspired by Fox,for example, it may require speaking to the brain first.

Mr. Ghengis:

You’ve zeroed in on the question that has bedeviled Democratic activists from Thomas Franks on down.  Why do Democrats lack sustained engagement (or engagement at all, I’d add)?  I don’t presume to have the answer or the time to give it the attention it deserves but I will offer a few thoughts in the context of the campaign.      

The most persuasive case I’ve heard for Sanders’ candidacy is that his message – that shared prosperity is frustrated, first and foremost, by a system rigged in favor of corporate interests – would inspire Democratic turnout, broadening the party’s base and uniting diverse factions.  Under this view, it doesn’t matter that Sanders’ proposals don’t add up and have no chance of becoming reality under a Republican Congress.  The point, instead, is to make the Party more distinctly ideological by articulating a set of progressive policies worth fighting for.    

While I don’t entirely discount that rationale, I believe it misapprehends the nature of the Democratic Party and the American electorate in general.  As ocean-kat points out upthread, the Democratic Party is less of a coherent ideological block than a coalition of interest groups not always consistently allied around some vaguely defined common themes – greater equality of outcomes, progressive taxation, concern for the environment, combatting discrimination against minorities, greater access to healthcare, financial regulation, greater emphasis on diplomatic rather than military approaches to foreign policy, etc.  Simply getting these disparate factions to unite behind any particular policy, much less the ideological agenda Sanders proposes, is a heavy lift.  Disagreements among Democrats are not the result of the corrupting influence of corporate cash, but rather the difficulty of balancing these diverse interests behind a coherent agenda – in other words, disagreements. 

More significantly, though, Sanders misreads the nature of the opposition.  Roughly half the country fundamentally opposes progress toward the goals sketched out above.  Hell, they don’t even agree that these are issues at all.  These are gut-level divisions – racial, religious, regional, class and ideologically based – that transcend the issue of money in politics.  The idea that they would be swept away by a progressive movement once working people realize they are being played is a dangerous fantasy.  If indeed, there is a silent majority out there, I fear it's closer to the one Spiro Agnew envisioned.

You point to the conservative movement as an example of sustained engagement and its true they have managed to consistently turn out their base with a much more narrow and explicit ideologically focused appeal.  That’s much easier to do when you’re in the opposition and the other party is the clear target.  I’m not sure that’s a model worth emulating.  First, while the relentless drive to the ideological right has succeeded on the local level (helped along by the Democrats’ failures to organize or turn out consistently in non-Presidential elections), it has not broadened their national appeal.  Second, as we are seeing now with Trumpism, the rigid ideological purity is not absolute and its unraveling could well prove the party’s undoing. 

I don’t know how much closer any of this brings us to the answer to your question (though I certainly hope all these bytes amount to something!).  Celebrating the party’s accomplishments, rather than attacking the compromises it took to get there, is a good first step, and there is plenty to be proud of in both the Clinton and Obama administrations.  Insisting on ideological purity while promoting the idea that leaders who have spent decades working for progressive solutions to complex issues in the face of determined opposition are part of the problem is not – see 2000 and 2010.  Hopefully, those motivated by the positive aspects of Sanders’ appeal will be moved to stay involved when the revolution inevitably falls short.  If so, it could actually prove your point. 

And of course, one thing I forgot to mention: Fear of Republican Planet should be sufficient motivation alone. 

Oy!  Do we really have to go there?  I'll take a shot at responding to these memes, which are at best utterly lacking in context and more often simply misleading distortions. 

1. Health Care:  I'd say calling for a single-payer system only a few years after the ACA took effect is quite different from saying the ACA simply did not go far enough.  We know how hard it was to get that bill through Congress even without the "public option."  Like it or not, Americans are suspicious of government, resentful of higher taxes, and mostly happy with their employer-provided insurance.  Remember the outcry over several thousand people whose inadequate insurance plans were replaced under the ACA?  Now imagine the reception for an actual, not imagined, government takeover of an industry that consumes 17% of GDP.  Sanders' call for a single-payer system under the circumstances not only denigrates that historic accomplishment that has halved the rate of uninsured in 2 years) but is IMHO, an insane waste of political capital.  Also, the goals of extending coverage and bringing down costs can be accomplished within a system of regulated private insurance.  Taking the insurance company out of the equation does not solve the problem.

2. Dodd/Frank: Of course, Sanders did vote for Dodd Frank.  His insistence on repealing Glass/Stegall, breaking up banks and jailing financial executives rather than implementing and extending those regulations does seem to me to contain an implicit criticism of the effect of the law, and Barney Frank himself seems to agree.  http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/02/three-reasons-why-things-will-get-harder-for-bernie-sanders-213591 As with single-payer, those ideas shift the focus entirely.  Without getting too deep in the weeds, I've read numerous pieces preferring the breadth and reach of her planned reforms.  See, e.g., http://www.vox.com/2015/10/8/9482521/hillary-clinton-financial-reform
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/hillary-clinton-gets-bernie-sanders-doesnt-wall-street  

3. "Tool of Corporate Interests":  (A) Accepting campaign contributions from individuals within a particular industry (that does not meet your favor) does not make one a tool of that industry.  (B) On the various bankruptcy bills, the facts are far more complicated.  As Elizabeth Warren has stated, Clinton was instrumental in getting the first Clinton administration to veto the first bankruptcy bill. A similar bill came up in 2001 when Hillary was the NY Senator.  Clinton has claimed that some of the offending provisions had been changed and she voted for the bill at the urging of then-Senator Biden.  That bill did not pass and, I believe, never made it out of committee.  Another bankruptcy bill came up in 2005. Hillary opposed that bill, but was not present for the vote because Bill was in the hospital.  Her vote either way would not have made a difference.           

4. Mass Incarceration: As a public defender, this one is near and dear to my heart and your assertion that the Crime Bill doubled incarceration rates is simply false.  First, the missing context: At the time the law was passed, America was at the end of a real crime wave (it had peaked, I believe, a year or two before, but of course, no one would have recognized that at the time). Communities really were under seige. And Democrats had been taking a beating for years for being "soft on crime" (see Willie Horton).  Bill Clinton's "tough on crime" posture was essential to the Democrats taking back the White House and it's fair to consider what legislation might have looked like if we hadn't.  As for the Bill itself, which Sanders voted for, along with Carole Mosely Braun, Bobby Rush, 2/3 of the Congressional Black Caucus, Ted Kennedy, Paul Wellstone, etc., it had virtually no effect on mass incarceration, which was the result of State level policies enacted long before.  Federal inmates make up only around 10% of the prison population.  There were some good things in the Bill that communities were asking for, more police officers, crime prevention programs (e.g., "midnight basketball" that Republicans mocked, VAWA and the assault weapons ban.  There were also some bad things: mandatory minimums, funding for more jails, truth in sentencing, more federal death penalty crimes (though none that have ever resulted in it being applied).  Violent crime and homicides, which had just started to fall off before the Bill passed (though not long enough to be seen as anything other than a statistical blip at the time) continued to fall after its passage and, while one can debate cause and effect, the law was for many years seen as a huge success.
See http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2016/02/michelle_alexander_blames_hillary_clinton_for_mass_incarceration_she_shouldn.html

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/11/10961362/clinton-1994-crime-law

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/02/22/dont_punish_clinton_sanders_for_1994_crime_bill_129729.html

5. Any claim that NAFTA and trade with China are responsible for deep poverty is so ludicrous I wouldn't even know where to start.  With respect to the Welfare Reform passed by Bill Clinton (which I did not support at the time), note that the bill was the third one sent to Clinton by the Republican house (Clinton vetoed the first two). Like crime, it was an issue that Democrats had been slaughtered on for decades, with AFDC widely seen as promoting a “culture of dependency.” The bill imposed a work requirement, created tax credits for low income individuals, and funds for job training and childcare. It also replaced AFDC with block-granted TANF funds to the States and placed a time limit of 5 years for receiving benefits. It was widely hailed for many years for nudging people into the workforce but over time the time limits and block grants have proved to be bad ideas, though hardly responsible for persistence of deep poverty. Clinton has acknowledged that those provisions should be changed. Sanders, I believe, has not articulated how he would replace the bill.

6. Warmonger - I answered those claims on a different thread.  

I'm out of gas.