People are frustrated by Congress’s inability or unwillingness to pass legislation supported by the vast majority of people. Polls show overwhelming bipartisan support for banning congressional stock trading — around 76% of voters favor it. Similarly, the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, enjoys broad support from voters of both parties. Yet both measures have stalled in Congress, blocked not by lack of popular support, but by entrenched political interests resistant to change.

This disconnect between what people want and what their representatives deliver has become a defining feature of modern politics. People don’t want their elected officials to get rich from insider trading, but multiple efforts to prohibit stock trading by members of Congress have hit a brick wall. Multiple bills have been introduced, including Rep. Bryan Steil’s (R-WI) Stop Insider Trading Act and Rep. Chris Pappas’s (D-NH) newly introduced No Getting Rich in Congress Act, yet none have overcome the resistance of senior members who benefit from the status quo. And nowhere is that tension more visible than in the Democratic Party’s belated reckoning with its own old guard.