The last refuge of a flailing female candidate is sexism. Back in 2008, as Hillary Clinton lost ground to Barack Obama in the primaries, her surrogates turned to charges of sexism to explain her woes. “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Geraldine Ferraro said to the press. “He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.” Feminists such as Gloria Steinem noted bitterly that black males received the vote before women. The country, in other words, would sooner support a black man for the presidency than a woman. Elizabeth Warren is now drawing upon this same pool of feminist grievance, dredging up an old and unconvincing story about a conversation in which Bernie Sanders said a female candidate for president couldn’t win.

No one is buying Warren’s story, but that hasn’t stopped her from going on offense. CNN caught a hot-mic moment after the debate on Tuesday in which she angrily accused Sanders of calling her a “liar on national television.” As these progressives devoured each other, CNN pundit Van Jones grew despondent, saying that he didn’t see any evidence that the Democrats could beat Donald Trump in November.

It is enjoyable to watch those who live by the politics of gender die by it. Sanders has had to get his wife to vouch for his enlightened bona fides.

“Our campaign has always been about bringing people together. Not dividing them up like Trump does by gender, race or ethnicity,” Jane O’Meara Sanders told the press. “We remain committed to continuing a progressive movement made up of women and men, black and white, gay and straight. The message is unity. We’re not going to go into that realm. We’re just not going to play that game.”

The spat between Sanders and Warren is making life easier for Joe Biden, despite what David Axelrod called a lackluster debate performance on Tuesday. Sleepy Joe is sailing slowly towards victory. Forgotten in the back-and-forth between Sanders and Warren is Biden’s poor record on women. It is Sanders, instead, who now finds himself on the defensive, as the media recalls the behavior of the “Bernie bros” in 2016.

According to a report in the Associated Press, some feminists still blame them in part for Hillary’s loss in 2016:

[S]ome Democratic activists and operatives complained about the aggressive culture during the first campaign when male staffers and supporters were sometimes labeled “Bernie bros.” “I’m not the least bit surprised,” National Organization for Women President Toni Van Pelt told The Associated Press, noting she was forced to block Sanders’ supporters from her social media feed in 2016. “To me, it was really clear this was the way they were running the campaign.” She blamed Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump, at least in part, on Sanders and his supporters.

Bernie Sanders has duly apologized for his lack of “human resources” awareness in 2016, though, ironically, one of his apparent omissions was that he didn’t make special room accommodations for women on his campaign. In other words, he shouldn’t have been treating everyone the same.

Warren’s gambit doesn’t appear to be helping herself very much. She has already earned the lasting ire of fervent Bernie supporters. The feud is only serving to highlight the weakness of the field. So weak is it that Michael Bloomberg is “viewed as the Democrat most likely to defeat President Trump if nominated, according to a newly released betting market analysis,” says a recent report.

The report continues,

Trump, according to their findings, has a 55 to 60 percent chance of winning, a more significant shot than any Democrat.… Trump looks to be rising both in his conditional electability and in online markets’ assessment of his “absolute electoral odds,” wrote researchers, adding that investors appear to have rising confidence that federal policy will be U.S. market-friendly. “It may be too early for asset markets to respond to the ups and downs of the nomination process. Moreover, even though candidates have stated positions, investors may be discounting the follow-through once elected,” the research noted.

It would be richly ironic, if after all the unified Trump-hating from the left, a socialist like Sanders loses not at the hands of Trump but from the low blow of a fellow leftist.