Another point I've made before that burns me up with talking about progressives being extreme is that there are numerous leftists beyond progressives to the left that are extreme. However, since FDR, a 4 term populist progressive, the country has moved steadily to the right. What is now considered the center used to be considered the far-right moderates bordering the extremist. Under Trump, that line jumped to "not quite Fascist, but bordering it". And MAGA is clearly fascist, just not full-blown to the Nazi extreme.
On the left, the moderate centrists are no different than the moderate right under Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush presidencies. The Tea Party changed all of that and started this racism-based push to the far right.
Like you, I prefer a party that at least puts forward solutions, even if they are less than perfect. ANYONE should be able to see the status quo of being all about the socialism for rich and corps and rugged capitalist individualism for the working class and poor is no longer good for America. The working class (middle class) needs some relief before they vanish into poverty with the trapped in place impoverished forced to beg for handouts just to get by. Unfortunately, the money-grubbing moderates, national media, corps, and the financial elite will continue to spread disinformation to maintain the status quo where they are the only winners. So anything progressives offer is painted bad or extreme before it ever had a chance to get off the ground. Bernie is far from perfect, and he'll admit that to anyone. But he would have easily been a better POTUS than Trump or Biden simply because he would have shown up every day and tried to improve the lives of common Americans across the board. Imagine that, a POTUS that goes the extra mile to do things for working-class America instead of manufacturing more wars and higher profits. While the true extremists would say we dodged a bullet, I think we missed out on a real leader. At a minimum, he is somebody that would have started us in the right direction.
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