I think Jane sometimes overdoes the Veal Pen metaphor, but there's certainly lots of
truth to it.
We have witnessed the greatest implosion of American capitalism in nearly a century, and the only grassroots movement the cataclysm seems to have birthed is a right-wing populist backlash. When the country suffered a trauma that massively discredited the establishment rulers, the Democratic Party became the establishment. And progressive groups in DC, under stern White House orders not to cause trouble (don't show up at his door! he's a donor! we might nominate him for something!), descended into what one organizer calls "grotesque transactionalism."
