Last month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) introduced new rules intended to stymie electoral challenges from the left. The group announced that it would no longer give any work to consultants, pollsters, and other political professionals who lend their efforts to progressives and democratic socialist candidates seeking to depose Democratic Party incumbents, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did last summer when she unseated establishment Democrat Joe Crowley.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, including Ocasio-Cortez, are right to speak out against these measures, which are designed to weaken the Left. Since the left wing is already weaker, forcing professionals to choose between the Left and center means they’re likely to gravitate to the center to protect their own careers, starving the left wing of resources and expertise. The move is an attempt to leverage the self-interest of the professional political class against a political movement that threatens corporate profits and centrist dominance, which are extensively entangled.

One wonders, given the extreme resistance to the Left from the Democratic Party establishment, why progressives and democratic socialists should run as Democrats at all. Unfortunately, the unique characteristics of the US two-party system make it nearly impossible in many cases to run viable and impactful third-party campaigns. That means that in order to widely project a pro–working class message while still potentially winning a race, many progressive and democratic socialist candidates are compelled, for the time being, to run on the Democratic Party ballot line — that is, to run as putative members of a party that detests them.