let's not forget this happened to india walton too, she won the democratic primary in buffalo and the entire establishment mobilized against her. paterson et al. are hoping they can pull off the same trick here. it also happened to bernie sanders when he seemed on the verge of winning in 2016
I think dems have a sincerely held belief that it's good to have a lot of rich people in the US and that that high GDP is what makes america great, and thus you have to do whatever it takes to keep rich people rich and happy. and to them - to many! - this probably sounds uncontroversial, even banal