Regardless of whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican or somewhere in between, there’s no denying what’s currently happening to Sanders. Trump has even tweeted, “They’re staging a coup against Bernie!” Once the clear front runner, Sanders has recently been under extreme strategic attack and has now taken a seat in a close second place. When Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg abruptly dropped out within a day of each other to endorse centrist candidate Joe Biden before Super Tuesday, the situation became more dubious than usual.

“Klobuchar, Buttigieg and O’Rourke’s endorsements of Biden is the clearest sign yet that the establishment plans to coalesce around Biden in hopes of denying Sanders the nomination. Call it Operation Bernie Block,” Andy Kroll of the Rolling Stone said. It has been said that if Warren had dropped out before Super Tuesday and endorsed Sanders, he would have won more delegates.

Why aren’t progressive candidates rallying behind Sanders the way centrist candidates are rallying behind Biden? Elizabeth Warren had not been planning to drop out, but her low polling and delegate count didn’t stand a statistical chance in either gaining first place or defeating Trump. Plenty of Warren supporters are sharing their rightful disheartenment but realize that backing the other progressive candidate is the realistic and discerning choice to make. Warren’s policies nowadays are more alike with Sanders’ than they are different.

When centrist candidates talk about Sanders, they do so like he’s the enemy, which poses the question: why? Sanders wants to enact a tax plan that will increase taxes on those who make $250,000 and beyond annually, which makes elites who don’t want to pay their fair share nervous. Sanders is adamant on ending corporate greed, which includes keeping corporate dollars out of politics and ending the influence of corporations at the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Most of his policies include putting the power back into the hands of the people of this nation rather than in the hands of billionaires and corporations.

The DNC is just that — bribed by money, influence and self-interest. This will be their second time aiming to elect a centrist candidate by trying to silence and undermine Sanders. Hilary Clinton’s nomination and loss in 2016 will repeat itself in 2020 if Biden is the nominee. Not only does Biden not have the momentum or the multigenerational, multiracial working-class coalition, but his mental cognition and memory is greatly suffering and in decline.

Trump is running an ad amplifying this. The ad shows Biden losing his train of thought midsentence, incoherently speaking and even forgetting where he is. Other compilations of videos show him saying that he’s running for the United States Senate rather than the presidency, telling his voters to “vote for the other Biden,” not being able to effectively speak on his policies in full and completely losing his train of thought. This has sparked great concern generally but not so much from his supporters or the Democratic establishment. These are the same people who criticized Sanders after his heart attack, even though he released multiple medical records and statements from reputable doctors ensuring his health and fitness for the presidency. Biden supporters seem to either be completely ignoring his dementia-like mental decline or they simply are unbothered by it.

By the Democratic establishment sadistically propping up a centrist candidate who is suffering memory loss simply to defeat Sanders makes the party laughable at best. The disastrous Iowa caucus caused embarrassing dismay for the DNC, and now the establishment is rallying behind a candidate who has no real chance of defeating Trump.