It seems as though Barack Obama has a problem with the left. The problem is that he does not like the left and neither does the Democratic establishment.

Last week Obama addressed a group of wealthy donors who call themselves The Democracy Alliance. Headlining an event for a secretive group that controls hundreds of millions in campaign contributions, Obama took the chance to warn wealthy liberals that Democratic candidates should “pay some attention to where voters actually are and how they can actually think about their lives,” according to

Politico

.

“The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it,” he warned. “They just don’t want to see crazy stuff.” Yeah, how crazy it would be for a cut-throat country like the United States to provide health insurance to all Americans, or affordable college, or distribute income equitably. Absurd!

Obama vehemently objects to Democratic candidates calling for big systemic change, and in doing so, he demonstrates everything that is wrong with the Democratic party.

In 2016 it did not matter that, while campaigning in support of Hillary Clinton, President Obama argued, “I don’t think that there is ever been someone so qualified to hold this office.” When a rude, air-headed celebrity with no political experience ran on a platform of being anti-elite, anti-social justice, anti-establishment, and beat the epitome of an establishment politician in Clinton, Democrats did not learn their lesson.

Instead, they painted their loss as an electoral college fluke. They blamed it on Russian interference, the Wikileaks dump of thousands of John Podesta emails, and FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for official State Department correspondence.

Blame was deflected off Hillary Clinton. Her unexciting platform and her Washington-establishment status would come up in conversation, as well as her limited travel to some states that spurned her. But her loss is usually attributed to factors outside of her own control.

Of course, Clinton did indeed win the popular vote. And ask any government professor and they will probably tell you 2016 was a fluke. But I would argue it should never have been so close in the first place.

If Clinton and her relatively-moderate platform are supposed to be regarded as the be-all-end-all in Obama’s view — then and now — then why did not she wipe the floor with Donald J. Trump?

Ironically, Obama is telling the Democrats to take their cues from conservatives. In his comments to The Democracy Alliance, he argued that “persuadable independents” and “moderate Republicans” are not “driven by the same views that are reflected on certain, you know, left-leaning Twitter feeds.”

In a time when, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report, over 70 percent of Democrats favor Medicare-for-all maybe Obama would prefer that Democrats pay attention to the 70 percent of Republicans that oppose Medicare-for-all?

I could not disagree more with Obama’s foray into the 2020 presidential race. He seems to forget that even though Hillary Clinton won the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary with 16.9 million votes, Bernie Sanders came in second with 13.2 million Democratic primary votes.

Sure, that is a 12-point spread. But that plurality of Bernie supporters should not be shunned as Democrats regroup for 2020 and beyond. That progressive Bernie base is full of young people who form the future of the party, young people who are all-in for systemic change and political solution.

Bernie Sanders does not get the credit he deserves for retaining a young, diverse base. According to polling by

YouGov

and

The Economist

, Bernie fought Clinton to a near-draw for non-white voters under the age of 44 in the 2016 Primary, closing a 33-point deficit in October 2015 to around 5-points by June 2016. Meanwhile, Bernie dominated Hillary amongst white voters age 18–44, fielding a 31-point lead by the end of the race.

Ignoring those numbers, Obama also does not want to focus on the distant moderate candidates of the 2020 Democratic Presidential primary. Even though Obama’s Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. continues to lead national polls, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are always a close second and third. And Biden’s early lead is wavering.

Together, Warren and Sanders have raised nearly three times as much in individual contributions as Biden, according to

The New York Times

. Taken together, their national polling averages carry an 11-point spread over Biden. Their share of the Democratic electorate appears to have the upper hand. And frankly, Obama does not like that.

Of course I am not against politicians listening to their constituents; that is supposed to be their job! But I am against President Obama’s interpretation of what the average American thinks. The Democratic Party might not be talking and voting how he would like, but change is about and I would prefer that Barack Obama did not put himself in the way of that change.

My advice to the 44th President: stick to the speaking circuit and stay out of the way of Democratic progress.