Bernie Sanders has always made elite political journalists uncomfortable, on a deeply personal level.

When Sanders rails against the corporate-friendly status quo, it rubs them the wrong way. Accepting the status quo as fundamentally reasonable is a prerequisite for succeeding in modern mainstream political journalism. Anything else makes you an “activist”.

When Sanders says that accepting corporate money is corrupting, they feel attacked. It’s not just that most of their paychecks come from giant corporations, it’s that their Washington is awash with corporate money. It funds their spouses and their friends. It buys them drinks.

When Sanders speaks in moral absolutes and refuses to compromise on core values, they respond with contempt at his inflexibility because they feel remorse over their own moral flexibility.

Our elite political journalists take for granted that vaguely defending the status quo does not equate to having an agenda. But if they took in what Sanders is saying, they would realize that defending the status quo is an agenda, and arguably not a very defensible one at that. So they push him away.