"What’s funny about that is they assume my ambition is positional. They assume my ambition is a title or a seat. My ambition is way bigger than that. My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, elected officials come and go, single payer healthcare is forever."
I don’t even know if that’s a thought. This country has little hope of a third party without radical changes to how we vote.
But keeping loud progressives in the party where they can be seen and heard is good to keep progressive voters engaged. Note that Bernie, AOC, and the more outspoken libs are given more airtime come election years whereas they only get minor sporadic coverage the rest of the time. So the Dems attract the progressives by amplifying convenient voices when it suits them, but otherwise progressive policy is essentially nullified by neo-lib willful failure to block shitty conservative policy.