https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/populist-momentum-1.4895803
It is difficult, if not impossible, to unring the bell of populism once it has taken hold.
This week's U.S. midterm election results, in which Democrats regained control of the House but were dealt a stiff setback in the Senate, proved less a blue wave than a light misting; hardly the wholesale repudiation of President Donald Trump that some had hoped for. Despite a respectable House win, it appears voters were not clamouring for a return to "business as usual" governance.
Something tells me even if the Democrats take the Senate and even more of the House, if they didn't do so with a platform made by Bernie or the Democratic Socialists or the "real left" instead of the "Center Right" the Democrats allegedly are, you'd still complain.
Just face it - you are deeply associated with Messianic Politics.
You want a populist messiah to "fix" all the problems you see in America's Democracy. Those who seek a Messiah will never receive one.
Hey, remember what happened the last time the Democrats had a huge (257 seats) House majority and a Senate supermajority (58 + 2 independents)? Oh, right, they passed the Republican health care proposal, lost the House, lost too many state legislatures, got gerrymandered to the point where they need to win the House vote by 5 or 6 points to get a bare majority, lost the Senate, lost the Presidency, and now have five wingnut ideologues sitting on the Supreme Court with well over a hundred on the lower courts. And at least three of those "center-right" Democrats* got their asses handed to them in what should have been a wave election--and in which many progressive ballot initiatives passed quite easily, sometimes in the same states. (See: Missouri.)
The issue isn't the platform on which they take the House, Senate and/or Presidency. It's what they do once they have them.
*There were arguably five who were easy pickings for the Republicans in a normal year: Manchin, Heitkamp, Donnelly, McCaskill, and Tester. Heitkamp, Donnelly, and McCaskill lost. Manchin won, but by twenty points less than he did in 2012. Tester's margin, meanwhile, only dropped by about a point, and Tester is quite good on one issue in particular: corruption.
EDIT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlTfjcJ77lsRichard Ojeda, who posted the best improvement of any candidate over their party's 2016 Presidential candidate in the comparable race--Hillary Clinton lost WV-3 by 49 points, he lost by around 13 or 14--is running for President in 2020.
Honestly, I thought he'd take on Sen. Capito.