What kind of turning point will 2016 be for the Democratic Party?

I'm starting to think that the 2016 Democratic primary race may turn out to be as important an inflection point for progressive politics as the Iraq War was in 2002-3.

I'm not surprised to see that rightwingers are still rightwingers. That's been the climate and the direction in the Republican Party for some time.

What has surprised me is the downright hostility that some people who I've regarded as clear progressives have been expressing toward Bernie Sanders.

Aimee at No More Mister Nice Blog, for instance, goes Biblical on the topic in The Judgment of Solomon 06/15/2016. And in Brass Balls, Huge Ego. No, Not Trump. 06/16/2016 she sneers at Sanders this way, "There is nothing like the ego of an older white man."

Of course, it has been more usual for Hillary partisans to sneer at Sanders supporters as young and frivolous. (Alanna Vagianos, Gloria Steinem Apologizes For Remarks About Young Female Sanders Supporters Huffington Post 02/27/2016)

And there has yet to be any sort of retraction or apology that I've heard of from Debbie Wasserman Schultz - Hillary supporter, DNC Chairperson and BFF of the payday loan industry - for the sleazy anathema she issued against Sanders and his supporters on May 17.

Frank Rich reflects on how it might or might not help Hillary Clinton to adopt some of Bernie Sanders' posiitons in No Matter What Trump Says or Does, the GOP Will Never Abandon Him New York 06/16/2016.

Ed Kilgore looks at the same issue in Would It Help or Hurt Clinton to Adopt Some of Sanders’s Policy Positions? New York 06/16/2016.

Robert Borosage frames the question of, What Will Bernie Do? Truth Out 06/16/2016 in a very good way:

The question is what Clinton will do. Will she run a campaign of experience against Donald Trump's idiocy, seeking to capture the center while sacrificing any mandate for bold reform? Will she embrace the need to become a candidate of change rather than continuity? ...

The question is what Clinton and Democrats on the platform committee and in the convention will do. Will they embrace the Sanders agenda -- that probably enjoys majority support from the delegates were they free to vote their personal preference? Will they seek to avoid clear commitments -- on the $15 minimum wage, the banks, the trade deal, college costs and debts -- substituting gauzy language about goals for clear platform pledges? ...

The question is what Clinton will do. Will she want her convention to be opened by Wasserman Schultz and greeted by mass booing by the assembled delegates? Will she embrace reform or defend the rules on money and superdelegates that helped consolidate her victory?...

The question is what the Clinton campaign will do. Will they seek to control the content of Sanders' remarks? Will they try to get him to drop his own agenda and simply focus on Trump? Will they push him to paint Clinton as a progressive reformer, rather than someone who deserves support in the cause of stopping Trump? ...

The question is what the Clinton campaign will do. Will it accept that Sanders is building a political movement with its own trajectory, even as they are allied in the mission of defeating Trump? Or will it generate bitter feuds demanding control of the "Sanders list," his schedule and content of his remarks? ...

The question is what Clinton will do. Will she work hard to appeal to the young voters and independents and blue-collar workers that were the core of the Sanders base? Will she offer them the hope for change that clearly inspired them about Sanders? Or will she decide they have nowhere else to go, and focus on winning the votes of moderate Republicans in swing state suburbs? ...

The question is what Clinton will do, assuming she is elected. Will she champion bold reforms that gain the enthusiastic support of the Sanders movement? Or will she ratchet up our intervention in the Middle East, heat up the emerging cold wars with Russia and China, seek a "grand bargain" with Republicans on austerity, go back to championing trade deals, ignore the need for immediate action on climate change, and usher Wall Street's bankers back into Washington's drivers seats? That would force the Sanders movement to build in opposition to her on key issues, not in support of her.