One of the more common worries about Bernie Sanders is that he is creating a division in the party. Last week, Bill Clinton drew a comparison between Sanders supporters and the Tea Party:

If [we] don’t deal with the fact that we are too politically polarized and we keep rewarding people who tell us things we know they can’t do because it pushes our hot button, we can’t go forward together.

This is the underlying message of many of the hits on Sanders from her opponent and her supporters: That he is disloyal to Obama, that he is doesn’t know how politics is played; that he will undo the gains the establishment Democrats have made.

And hasn’t the GOP made it clear that this is a real concern? Between last year’s House Speaker fiasco and everybody’s least favorite billionaire leading the polls, the right has become as fractured and unstable as ever. Shouldn’t Democrats be worried about their own extreme split, mirroring the Tea Party on the right? After all, it’s hard to imagine winning back the House or Senate if we’re attacking each other for being Liberal In Name Only.

On top of this, Dems have more immediate fears with Trump’s ascent: a situation so bizarre that some are calling for liberals to vote for Rubio. The stakes have never been higher for the Democrats.

And after Trump cleans up on Super Tuesday (spoiler alert), we’ll surely get renewed calls from Hillary supporters that those Bernie fans better show up and vote for her to stop the Trump presidency! Here’s another spoiler alert: They won’t. Despite all the begging and pleading, it is clear that a large swath of Sanders supporters simply would not vote for Clinton, which would give the Democratic establishment the perfect scapegoat. We’ll have the radical leftist faction unswayed by reason, just like Bill Clinton warned against.

But this attitude would miss the point entirely, because the ball is in the Democratic establishment’s court.

The rise of the Tea Party and subsequent fracturing of the Republicans wasn’t the fault of the conservatives who wanted to move right; it was the fault of the party establishment that didn’t follow the constituency. While the people demanded more from their party, all they got was another Bush who did so incredibly bad that he suspended his campaign three states into the contest, despite his massive establishment backing.

Now the Democrats find themselves in the same boat as Bernie Sanders continues to gain unprecedented levels of grassroots support, most recently with a mind-boggling $42 million raised in February, putting him neck-and-neck with the most qualified establishment candidate in decades.

The Sanders phenomenon is a popular mandate that the constituents — or at least a critical mass of them — want more progressivism than they have gotten from the Dems, and they’re unafraid to fight for that.

And maybe this is perfectly normal, despite claims that progressives are out of touch. Perhaps people are just dissatisfied with a Democratic Party that has conceded time and again to the right and to corporate interests, that can’t even bring climate change to the table, and that hasn’t stopped the ever-growing inequality we face. And if that’s the case, there would be little reason to suspect that those people would be itching to support Hillary Clinton on Election Day, The fact is, the party is supposed to operate in support of the people, not the other way around.

So the establishment Democrats are at a crossroads, even if they don’t realize it. they can go where the people want and move left, not just in rhetoric but in action. Together, the party and the people can coexist as a united progressive front against the tumultuous right, with the opportunity to lead in all branches of government for years to come. Or the party can refuse to budge, only to flounder and engage in infighting while the Republicans move further to the right.