Biden, Buttigieg, and Klobuchar: It’s my party (and I’ll do what I want to)

Lesley Gore’s famous lyrics It’s my party (and I’ll cry if I want to) are the words to define  the
Democratic Party on Super Tuesday, especially for its moderate wing.  They seem prepared to  take back control of the party in a way that prevents the voters from making the same mistake the Republicans did four years ago which unfortunately resulted in them winning the presidency with Donald Trump.
In my election law seminar I ask from a constitutional perspective who is the party?  Is it the candidates, party leadership and officials, convention attendees, primary voters, or general election voters.  The legal implications of who is the party are significant as they determine whose rights are recognized or prioritized.  Yet politically determining who is the party is equally an interesting question as it raises questions about orthodoxy and what it stands for and whose interests it represents.
For mainstream Democratic and leaders, Bernie Sanders represents an existential threat.  He is an outsider raising the spectre of democratic socialism and supporting the interests of younger people and marginalized voters who have felt they have no voice.  These individuals, including Millennials and Gen Zs, have not seen capitalism work. Their parents or they lost homes in 2008, wages have not gone up, home prices are out of sight, student loan debt is beyond manageability, and compared to other generations at a similar age, they have less wealth.    They like Sanders because he speaks to their reality.  He represents their Democratic Party, the one they want to join.  They are now the largest generational voting bloc in the US and want to assume the mantle of power.
The party they do not want to join is the one of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and Peter Buttigieg. That is the party of the Baby Boomers, the affluent who have already made it.  It is of a Democratic Party who has Wall Street members such as former Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein and self-described Democrat who said “It would be harder to vote for Bernie than for Trump.”
Establishment Democratic Party leaders, mainstream media, and the political science field are apoplectic over Sanders.  He challenges orthodoxy in so many ways.   He challenges the neo-liberalism of the Party over the last 40 years that pushed the white working class over to Trump.  He also questions the wisdom of the idea of moving to the center to win, contending that with the disappearance of the bell curve shape of the American electorate and the demise of swing voters, it may not make sense to move to the center any more and instead appeal to a new rising generation of voters.  Despite what Democratic Party moderates and mainstream political science contends, there is more evidence than they think that a Sanders’ strategy might work.  After all, it was these same people who thought Trump was impossible.
The point is that there is now a panic within the moderate wing of the Democratic Party.  Fearful of a Sanders’ takeover similar to a Trump takeover of the Republican Party, they are fighting back.  Now many of my political science colleagues scoff, contending that parties are weak and think super delegates would never pull a coup.  However, 70 years the political science profession advocated for stronger party government.    Ask any third party about how strong the two parties are for an answer.
What we are seeing on the eve of Super Tuesday with the withdrawal of Buttigieg and Klobuchar from the race is first recognition of the reality they were going nowhere.  Second, it was fear that their  party was going to Sanders and to those whom they perceived as outsiders.    If Sanders is Robespierre then what is happening now is the Thermidorian Reaction. 
The mainstream  is crying over where their party is going.