Bernie Sanders is destroying Chuck Schumer in the Democratic Party’s Civil War ahead of the midterms

Maine just sent a blunt message to the Democratic Party’s national leaders. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills was forced to abandon her U.S. Senate campaign on Thursday, unable to generate sufficient fundraising or enthusiasm to compete against Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who has never served in elected office. The announcement marked a stinging defeat for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who recruited Mills to lead the party’s decades-long quest to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins. The swift defenestration of a two-term governor by a political neophyte highlighted a stark reality that has begun to take hold at a pivotal moment — Democratic voters are rejecting their party’s establishment and embracing new risks, even as their confidence grows that a blue wave is coming in November’s midterm elections. Sometimes Democrats seem almost as angry at their own party’s aging and entrenched leadership as they are at President Donald Trump. “Rank-and-file Democrats don’t want the Democratic Party as we know it,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the Democratic resistance group Indivisible. “Rank-and-file Democrats want fighters.” Local Indivisible chapters, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who’s an independent but caucuses with Democrats, and other leaders from the party’s progressive wing had already lined up behind Platner, who is now almost certain to be the Democratic nominee in one of the party’s best Senate pickup opportunities in the nation. Platner on Friday insisted he would continue to speak out against his party’s leadership, including Schumer, although he acknowledged that the two spoke privately the night before. “The fact that we’ve been able to do all of this without the help of the establishment, it puts us in such an amazing position,” Platner said on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.” “My criticisms of the party leadership, my criticisms of the party, they have not changed, and I’ve been very vocal about that since t