Last month, the Bernie Sanders campaign sent a tweet that upset some people. It read “I’ve got news for the Republican establishment. I’ve got news for the Democratic establishment. They can’t stop us.”

While this sentiment may seem par for the course for an insurgent campaign like that of Sanders, it sent much of the liberal commentariat into an uproar. He was excoriated for dividing the party, for being too shouty and oppositional, and a whole host of other violations of proper party etiquette.

Yet for those closely watching the response of party loyalists, a certain incoherence was legible in the blowback. This incoherence was dramatized by one CNN talking head, who barked back that “The Democratic establishment gave us civil rights, voting rights, the assault weapons ban, social security and Medicare,” only to contradict himself a few days later by saying that, “There is no Democratic establishment.”