The Democratic Party establishment of don't-rock-the-corporate-boat congressional leaders and their hired political operatives keep trying to purge progressive activists and policies from the party. Even when the candidates of these old-line forces win, as Joe Biden did, they can't seem to stop assailing grassroots progressives who supply the new ideas, energy, organizing — and votes — that are the party's future. They're furious that we upstarts are making gains and pushing Democrats to be ... well, DEMOCRATS! Their latest hissy fit asserts that we are scaring voters with "wild-eyed" proposals like "Medicare for All," a Green New Deal and criminal justice reform.

Just hours after polls closed on Nov. 3, a group of timorous congressional Democrats joined in a game of "pin the tail on the progressives," wailing that demands for such egalitarian policies had nearly cost Biden the presidency and were to blame for eight centrist Dems in swing districts losing their House seats. One of the leading complainers, Rep. Jim Clyburn, even insisted that those pushing a people's democratic agenda would be the death of the Democratic Party. If "we are going to run on Medicare for All ... socialized medicine, we're not going to win," he proclaimed.

Never mind that we taxpayers already provide "socialized medicine" for him and his colleagues, and never mind that he happens to be a top recipient of political cash from pharmaceutical profiteers. He is also wrong.

"Every single swing-seat House Democrat who endorsed #MedicareforAll won re-election or is on track to win re-election," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Nov. 7. "Every. Single. One." Indeed, of the eight soft Dems who lost their House seats, all refused to back health care for all.

Far from scary, the idea of providing health coverage for every American is hugely popular. Just days before the election, polling by Fox News (!) showed 72% of voters favor "changing to a government-run health care plan."

It's hardly surprising that the big, transformative policy changes we seek are bugaboos for right-wing Trumpeteers and defenders of corporate supremacy, but they're also powerfully attractive ideas for an increasing majority of Americans (including those who voted for former President Donald Trump) who are seeking relief from the relentless crush of plutocracy and autocracy in our society. The fact is that Biden is in the White House because progressives backed him — despite the business-as-usual timidity embraced by him and his peers.

The Democratic Party establishment behind Good ol' Joe Biden is now circulating a "go slow" warning to the new president.

While he should undo the most repressive and regressive edicts of the Trump abnormality, they instruct, he should not attempt the kind of big-idea, Rooseveltian structural changes that progressives advocate. After all, they maintain, it was Biden's moderate, incremental campaign for a return to pre-Trumpian normalcy that got him elected.

Excuse me, but if ignorance is bliss, these champions of the corporate-run status quo must be ecstatic. I was out there in the thick of last year's election, and it definitely was not establishmentarians who saved our nation from Trump II. While party insiders insisted that Biden be the Democratic candidate, they didn't have the voter credibility or the outreach to elect him. Big donors and powerful lawmakers are talkers — they don't go door to door, send millions of personal text messages or volunteer to organize mass rallies.

Indeed, rather than working with insurgent grassroots activists, the old guard that controls the party apparatus largely got in the way of success, arrogantly refusing to back progressive nominees and deflating the morale of volunteer activists. And while Biden's muted "I'm not Trump" campaign was calming to moderates, it stamped out any spark of enthusiasm that most voters might have had if he'd been a more robust champion of people's needs. The ones who carried Biden into the Oval Office, despite his 50-year career of political meekness, were the grassroots organizers and volunteers from unions, activist people of color, women's networks, youth groups and so many other rebels against the corporate order that the Democratic powers now demand we preserve.

Biden's presidential legacy — and the Democratic future — are dependent on his breaking with Washington insiders and aligning with insurgent progressive activists who would reconnect the party to its anti-establishment roots and make it an FDRish Party of the People again.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.