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This is exactly what I said after the first debate this week: Space Cadet Williamson enraged the Left by demonstrating their so-called "serious" candidates are every bit as disconnected from reality as she is.
In the second debate, Gabbard infuriated the Left by bringing "right-wing talking points" into the sacred temple of socialism and doing severe, possibly fatal damage to one of their "serious" candidates.
Both Williamson and Gabbard upstaged all the "serious" candidates by appearing far more likable. They didn't act like socialist popes trying to whip up a crusade against the deplorable heathens.
Their chances of securing the nomination are dubious at best, but both of them have some appeal as iconoclasts. A party in deep turmoil and transition might look outside the box for its presidential nominee. That's one reason Trump won the GOP primary.
Biden is shambling toward the nomination because he's the only candidate that seems to have a prayer of winning some moderate voters in the general election. Gabbard and Williamson could argue they have different ways of reaching beyond the far Left.
That drives the far Left absolutely batty, because they deeply resent the implication that their ideas and their foaming-at-the-mouth zealotry are toxic in the general election.
Left-wing crusaders were driven mad with rage when they saw nobody was interested AT ALL in any of their candidates after the debates. Nobody wanted to know more about Warren or Harris. Everyone, everywhere, was curious only about Williamson and Gabbard.
That anger was only intensified when they heard Republicans saying things like, "I still don't agree with those two about much, but at least they don't seem like they hate me." High-octane hate is the fuel that drives the Left. They do not want their hatreds challenged.
The Angry Left's consolation right now is that the Detroit debates were a fluke, a brief flash of attention for Williamson and Gabbard as novelties, a passing laugh at two odd ducks who made the whole Party look ridiculous. Steps are being taken to hustle them off the stage ASAP.
The 2020 Dem primary has always been a clash between those who think anyone can beat Trump, so this is the moment to run the hardest Left candidate possible and finish the job of "transforming America" with social-engineering jackhammers...
... and those who worry Trump is still the favorite to win in 2020, and only by attracting moderates and carefully reclaiming the voters Hillary Clinton drove off can the White House be taken. That's why Biden has thus far floated back to the lead after every onstage debacle.
The faction that wants to transform the Democrat Party - halting the long march to the hard Left, abandoning Party establishment dogma, redrawing partisan lines on a shifting political battlefield - is small, but a lot of Dem voters remain curious about the iconoclasts. /end
