Cenk, like Dore, press an ideological view without nuance or careful analysis of strategy pros and cons.
When Sanders started his campaign, he was a relative unknown to the American People.
If you've read Freakonomics, the authors point out that money can strongly influence election outcomes of relative unknowns, but has relatively little impact on politicians who are familiar, well-known commodities.
It took decades of relentless right-wing character assassination to turn Hillary Clinton from the exciting candidate who barely lost to the far more charismatic and far better orator Obama -- to the worn-out seeming political hack who couldn't carry the election over charlatan Trump.
Still, had Sanders been the target of massive, endless artillery bombardment by the Right, he'd have lost far worse to Trump. That is, because he's been a relative newcomer, his popularity could be devastated more quickly by well-funded smears.
Four years close to the political center stage can change that. He's better known now. He's still vulnerable to that bombardment on issues of age, and for sounding like somebody's crazed uncle. I'm unclear why, but some see him as sexist and racist. His defense of the VA medical system can be turned against him, because of scandals that have repeatedly popped up, even as he's praised and defended the VA system.
Do Cenk or Dore admit his vulnerability on any issues? No, they just repeat over and over that he's the most popular politician in America. Not so long ago, that was Hillary.
Cenk here repeatedly makes the absurd, ridiculous claim that Sanders would take big money out of politics. The reality is that *only* overturning the Citizens United ruling can do that.
Independent expenditures for campaigns have come to dwarf the money available to individuals campaigns, DNC and RNC coffers combined. The reality neither of these commentators seem to grasp is that the parties barely even exist any more. The RNC, DNC, and state-level counterparts have no control over who runs for office under their banners, and they now have little financial ammunition to sway outcomes. They schedule debates, and direct relatively small sums of money to individual campaigns. They influence the drafting of platforms, but all platforms become bird cage liner the day after an election.
Railing against the DNC (or RNC) is like blaming the ball boy at a baseball game for your team's loss.
The grim reality is that that, left or right, the big donors *are* the parties. And yeah, that sucks.
Another reality is that Republicans have *always* received the lion's share of corporate support. Back before Citizens United, that was balanced by staunch union financial support and get-out-the-vote union-led efforts. But R's have relentless demonized unions and largely emasculated them by policy changes. Union membership keeps falling, union coffers keep shrinking, and public opinion of unions keeps dropping.
Now corporate money flows unimpeded towards Republican candidates, who shamelessly keep passing laws accordingly. Democrats are financially out-gunned and have generally dimmer and dimmer prospects. Not because they've given up ideals, but because it takes massive amounts of money to sway election results.
So Democrats (not just DNC, but most individual candidates) have had no choice but to selectively compromise ideals in the hopes of getting enough corporate support to win some elections. Yes, compromising ideals is disheartening. But the alternative, utter electoral irrelevance and one-party rule, is far, far worse. There is no way for pure ideals to win elections. Just Not Possible.
The fact still remains that Republicans will still get the lion's share of corporate support. But after the endless fustercluck that is Trump, there's an opportunity to win the next time around at national, state, and local levels--despite the financial scales being tipped in the R's favor.
Even, say, utterly slimy and repulsive "Corporate Democrats" still have every incentive to overturn Citizens United. And that crucial step is the only thing standing between democracy in the US on the one hand, and permanent one-party tyranny on the other.
For the mid-terms, turning either House or Senate is a game-changer, even if all the D's are "corporate democrats." Democratic control of either house puts a stop to Trumpian policy initiatives. More importantly, party committee control shifts to D, and the investigations by those committees suddenly have teeth and vigor.
The other insanity by Cenk and Dore is the failure to recognize that not all corporations are equally evil. Military manufacturers, fossil fuel producers, gun makers--they line up behind the Rs. If Bezos or Musk or Soros want to help balance the financial scales in elections, we need to welcome that support, not turn our noses up at it.