This is why his and his followers’ behavior can seem inexplicably self-defeating. Sanders may indeed win the nomination, despite (or because of) his efforts to undermine the Democratic Party. Like many who have sought the nomination before him, he knows that millions of Democrats have nowhere else to go, and that the people he and his followers sneeringly dismiss as practitioners of “identity politics” are likely to choose a candidate who is merely indifferent to, rather than actively opposed to, their concerns.