The donor classes do not want Bernie Sanders to be president. Most of them don’t want Elizabeth Warren, either. They’d prefer someone who doesn’t have much to say about wealth distribution, whether in the form of taxing the rich, or big programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Their most electable option in this vein — at least as measured by primary and general election polling, as well as occasional, if fleeting, resemblance to a sympathetic human being — is obviously Joe Biden. Unhappily for them, Biden is also a chucklehead. Terrified that the Left might win, the titans of industry have a plan: Deval Patrick.

Like Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris, Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, is the extremely disappointing progeny of a radical father. (Pat Patrick, a jazz musician, played with Sun Ra’s band, The Arkestra.) That’s probably the coolest thing about him.

The enthusiasm for Sanders and Warren at the grassroots — as well as for progressive and socialist local and Congressional candidates nationwide — might suggest a sea change, a popular desire to grapple seriously with the problems caused by capitalism. Deval Patrick, until recently an executive at Bain Capital, is a flagrant insult to that popular uprising. He is a cherished asset of the fossil fuel, private equity, and subprime mortgage industries, which are some of the worst phenomena that contemporary capitalism has produced. What’s next, a member of the Sackler family?