The dumpster fire that is the Iowa Democratic caucus is entertaining in the short run, but the party of the left confronts a much deeper and more serious reality: it is currently facing a truly existential crisis, and it all revolves around Bernie Sanders.  His candidacy is a no-win proposition for the Dems.  In fact, it's worse than that!

If he should win the nomination, the party leadership knows he simply cannot win the general election.  The American electorate just doesn't accept socialism — at least not at this point in time.  So if he wins the nomination, it's an unmitigated disaster for the Dems.

However, if he should lose the nomination, it's no less a disaster for the Dems!  Bernie's avid followers will be furious that he was denied the nomination for the second consecutive time.  Then Bernie and his angry followers will basically have three options:

1. Bernie will run as an independent third-party candidate and split the Democrat vote, thus assuring a Trump victory.  But his defeat would also likely destroy, or seriously injure, any socialist movement.  That's not the outcome his followers would want.

2. His followers will simply stay home in November, thus again assuring a Trump victory.  But this option would also likely place the socialist movement at least in limbo for four more years.  Again, not a desirable outcome for his followers.

3. Or his followers on the extreme left may actually decide to vote for Trump — and not just to ceremoniously stick it to the Democrat Party.  They may actually consider a vote for Trump as a necessary step to totally destroy the Democrat Party as currently constituted, reasoning that a landslide defeat of an establishment candidate would result in a total remaking of the party.  They then could immediately step in and create a brand new and openly socialist Democrat Party from the ashes.  The young devotees of socialism in particular may find this a tempting scenario.

I believe that the Democrat Party leadership fully recognizes this existential conundrum — but also can see no viable remedy.  That's why the leaders decided to throw Bloomberg a lifeline by changing rules to allow him to participate in the debates.  It's a desperate attempt to see if he can garner any public support and save the establishment party.  But if he becomes the candidate, the face of the Democrat Party will be an old rich white male who clearly bought the nomination.  It would be comical watching the Dems try to put lipstick on that pig!

If Bloomberg cannot generate any meaningful public support and fails to win the nomination, then the Dems will be faced with backroom finagling to choose a nominee — which will merely trigger the Bernie Bros as described above.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the real reason why the Democrats are so frantically desperate to destroy Trump and remove him from office.  It's their sole focus because removing Trump from the 2020 ballot is the only even remotely viable pathway to winning the election and thereby avoiding the total destruction of their party.  Thank you, Bernie!