The crowd at the Netroots Nation progressive confab cheered wildly when they were told that 66% percent of speakers were “people of color”, that 63% percent of speakers were women and that 25% identified as LGBT.

Those statistics were followed by a straight white male speaker who received a far more reserved response.

Tom Steyer, the billionaire liberal who has been pushing an effort to impeach Donald Trump, outlined his argument that “establishment Democrats” lacked the political courage to push for his removal.

He asked the rhetorical question: “How many people in this room believe that the Democratic establishment in Washington is listening to you and doing what you want?” and received the expected silence afterwards.

But he didn’t receive the expected cheers when he followed up by saying they are not willing to face a devastating and obvious truth about the president: “That he is wildly corrupt and we are well past the threshold to kick him out of office.”

The response was even more lackluster when he asked the crowd: “Do you need to wait for Robert Mueller to tell you Trump is wildly corrupt?” There were only scattered shouts of “no” from the audience of liberal activists.

Afterwards, Steyer seemed fine with the response, gathering with a handful of reporters in a hotel room across the street. Leaning against a cocktail table with his dressed rolled up to reveal a pattern of four X marks on the back of his left hand, he said: “This is a grassroots organizing group and I think they’re sitting down to figure out how this can happen, but I haven’t had the chance to talk to people.”

Steyer made the case to reporters not just about what he saw as the moral imperative for impeachment but also the political merits of it. He dismissed the claims of those such as Rudy Giuliani, who said earlier this week that the midterms would be a referendum on impeachment, noting that it was not a case that Republican were making in any campaigns.

The hedge fund mogul who has devoted his time and fortune to promoting progressive issues has attracted tens of thousands of people across the country to town halls devoted to the issue of impeaching Trump and has built a list of over 5.5 million people for his group Need to Impeach devoted to removing him from office.

However, the crowds at his events were very different than those who showed up at Netroots. They were older, whiter and less politically engaged but had been electrified by Trump’s win. Steyer viewed those who showed up at his events as “patriots” who thought: “I believe we have this great country, I believe its based on this fundamental idea about freedom and equality; this guy doesn’t give a shit and he’s going to tear it down if he can..

At his town halls, Steyer often gets a rapturous reception, but attendees at Netroots, veteran activists who had been plugged to the progressive movement for years, saved their enthusiasm for the speakers before and after him – cheering especially for Colette Pichon Battle, a local Louisiana activist, and New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell, both of whom are African American women and both of whom were far less focused on Trump.

The divide represents one of the challenges for progressives moving forward. Some are intensely motivated by Trump and others find it hard to get too riled up by any white billionaire. The question in the midterms is whether Democrats can keep both groups motivated to turn out.