But Stevens’s examples of post-election grudgeholding included not just President Donald Trump, who famously refused to concede in 2020, but also Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), the top el Sayed ally who is helping like-minded candidates win Democratic primaries across the country at the expense of Democrats like the congresswoman.

“Some might say Mr. Sanders pursued that approach as well when he didn’t win a Democratic nomination coming in as an independent,” Stevens said.

The 2016 Michigan Democratic primary between Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the eventual nominee, was similarly hard-fought, and some blamed the socialist senator’s supporters when Clinton lost the state to Trump that November.

Stevens again restated her belief in democracy, observed that el Sayed won their primary, and then proceeded to list some reasons why perhaps she shouldn’t have endorsed him at all.

“I’m going to continue to stand by my positions,” she continued. “I’m a Zionist Democrat. I am a Democrat who gets endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. I have been recognized over and over again as one of our most effective lawmakers. I identify problems and I solve them. Ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.”

Stevens wasn’t done.

“I run the bipartisan Manufacturing Caucus. I stood up for the hostages [taken by Hamas] with my colleague French Hill,” referring to the Indiana House Republican. I love our freedoms. I love this country.”

“And yes, I’m still in the Democratic Party,” Stevens concluded with a laugh as the host cut in, “even though folks like me maybe aren’t winning our primaries.”

Is this “salty grapes” or is Stevens still showing a little bit of “stick it to ‘em” in the aftermath of her loss and subsequent endorsement of the Democratic nominee?

Stevens, Jesse Arm writes in City Journal, “warned voters that El-Sayed lacked the judgment and values to represent Michigan in the Senate, accused him of scapegoating Jewish Americans, and condemned his use of a campaign surrogate who said that Jews were ‘inbred,’ praised Mao Zedong, and declared that ‘America deserved 9/11.’”

“If those arguments were sincere,” Arm asked, “should they cease to matter simply because the primary is over?”

Part of the answer is that Stevens ran like she knew the positions she outlined in her Fox interview were liabilities in a Democratic primary.

The Democratic establishment has tried to fight back against the insurgent socialists. The Michigan primary was ground zero. Stevens came much closer than expected, but still lost.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) spent a lot of political capital with the base when he was the GOP leader in fights with the tea party and then Trump. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) are entering this fight with their stock already diminished.

Could either Schumer or Jeffries survive a Democratic primary challenge, especially if New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed their opponents? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) could run against Schumer in 2028, if she doesn’t seek the presidency instead.

Al From of the Democratic Leadership Council, that centrist outfit that helped power Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, waved the bloody shirt against socialism after the Michigan primary: “We’ve been focusing on beating Republicans and the democratic socialists have been focused on beating us. We’ve got to fight back. We’ve got to make it harder for them.”

Fellow Clinton veteran James Carville insisted before the Michigan primary that he wouldn’t belong to the same party as el Sayed surrogate Hasan Piker.

“Now, I think that a majority — overwhelming majority of Democrats agree with me, but this idea that we’re going to seize the means of production and this — just go look at the DSA platform,” Carville said on Fox.

Yet Carville has already endorsed el Sayed. “Yeah, I’m going to be for el Sayed,” he told Piers Morgan after reciting a litany of standard Democratic grievances against former Rep. Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for Senate in Michigan.

Democrats need el Sayed to win in order to take control of the Senate. They need others like him to be successful in flipping the House. Schumer, Jeffries, and Stevens need to get on board in order to preserve their careers.

“It’s pretty simple: whatever differences you have with El-Sayed, he will be a reliable vote for the Democratic agenda and against MAGA,” Democratic strategist Adam Jentleson, a former aide to the late Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, wrote on X, noting the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy under Trump.

DSA ENDORSEMENT TRACKER: THE SOCIALISTS RUNNING FOR OFFICE ACROSS AMERICA 

But the acquiescence to socialists has, Arm writes, “validated the activist Left’s longstanding critique that establishment Democrats ultimately stand for little beyond holding office.” And Wisconsin shows establishment Democrats can actually beat socialists if they want to, even with a fairly convoluted scheme for getting there.

The energy is clearly with the socialists, not the centrists or garden-variety liberals, and the Democratic establishment cannot decide whether to fight or throw in the towel.