Progressives want to primary Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema? Good luck with that.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s declaration on Tuesday that he might support primary challenges to two of his Democratic colleagues, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), shows how frustrated progressives are at their inability to enact their sweeping agenda. It also shows how disconnected progressive ideology is from reality.

The Vermont independent and his ideological comrades are understandably upset that these two senators are blocking their plans to transform the United States. Progressives regard this less-than-dynamic duo as a couple of renegades who are betraying the views of the people who elected them. Progressives blame Manchin and Sinema alone for their party’s failure; in fact, the two Democratic holdouts are only powerful because 50 Republicans oppose the progressive agenda.

The trouble with this narrative is that it is utterly warped. Manchin and Sinema, like all elected members, were not elected by a narrow group of ideologues or donors; they were elected by a majority vote of their states’ electorates. That larger group includes many people who aren’t progressives at all, even if they occasionally vote for Democrats. Indeed, Manchin – the only remaining Democrat elected statewide in West Virginia – was sent to Washington by an overwhelmingly conservative population. The fact that he and Sinema prioritize the views of their constituents over the views of progressive activists isn’t heresy; it’s democracy.

Progressives often don’t see things that way because many of them share a worldview that dismisses opinions different from their own. When one disagrees with a progressive, they are often immediately cast out into the realm of devilish evildoers. If you think I exaggerate, look again. Those who think climate change is a problem but not an existential crisis are labeled “climate deniers,” which in the minds of many progressives is as bad as being a Holocaust denier. People who think requiring voters to show identification before casting ballots, a common practice in most democracies, aren’t just wrong; they are racists who support the return of Jim Crow. It’s impossible to view Manchin and Sinema with equanimity when all who oppose you are inherently malign.

This is, at heart, a Manichaean worldview that divides Americans into the perfect and the damned. It is a secular religion, with its own immutable truths that must be worshiped on pain of expulsion from the church. Sanders’s statement is meant to make the renegade senators tremble in fear for their potential excommunication. That Emily’s List, the noted Democratic PAC that focuses on abortion rights, soon joined the parade and declared it would withhold support from Sinema – a pro-choice Democratic woman! – over her refusal to change Senate filibuster rules provides further proof that enforcing dogmatic unity is crucial to the progressive mind-set.

Will these pronouncements produce frightened repentance? Will Manchin and Sinema bend the knee and beg for forgiveness? Fat chance.

Both senators know they live in precincts where the majority of people don’t sing progressive hymns. The attempt to inspire fear, then, will inspire only hatred and contempt.

This is the fatal flaw in progressive strategy. Progressives might be able to enforce their ideology in the ivory towers of Silicon Valley or academia, but it will not work in West Virginia or Arizona. Worse, it will likely alienate those non-progressives whose votes created the Democratic majority to begin with.

As my Washington Post colleague Philip Bump points out, progressive cries that democracy itself is threatened by Republicans aren’t believed by those outside the church. Nor are other progressive priorities shared by moderate Americans. A recent Economist/ YouGov poll shows that climate change is the most important priority among liberals, but only 10 percent of moderates agree. Fifteen percent of liberals name civil rights as their top priority; only 5 percent of moderates do. Progressive insistence on purity over persuasion is the biggest gift Republicans could receive, yet progressives just can’t stop themselves from giving it to them.

Dogmatic intolerance never goes down well with a democratic people, as Ronald Reagan gently reminded ideological conservatives in 1977. The more progressivism resembles medieval Catholicism in its intolerance of dissent, the likelier American democracy will produce Democrats’ worst nightmare: Republican rule as far as the eye can see.

––Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.