Bullying at the Democratic debates?

Senator Warren of Massachusetts showed herself "an effective bully" during the latest round of Democratic debates, according to New York Daily News columnist S. E. Cupp. Warren's bullying, Cupp writes, consisted of questioning the courage of more moderate candidates who refuse to endorse the "Medicare for all" idea. In her own words, "We're not going to solve the urgent problems we face with small ideas and spinelessness." Cupp equates this with questioning the manhood of those contenders -- all male from Cupp's account, who don't share Warren's vision. To call them spineless is insulting, certainly, but is it bullying? Hardly. For the progressives to call the moderates spineless is no more bullying than for the moderates to claim that the progressives effectively are handing the 2020 election to President Trump. Perhaps personal factors account for Cupp's reading of the debate -- she writes as if her own honor as a moderate Democrat has been besmirched by Warren -- but as far as I know the debates will continue with the moderates unbowed. Cupp's real complaint seems to be that Warren is unwilling to meet the moderates on the ground they prefer. They argue that "Medicare for all" is impractical and impolitic and claim, in Cupp's words, to be "strategic and realistic" about that. Whether they are right hasn't been shown yet. Unfortunately for them, they're up against a mindset that treats assertions of limits with angry skepticism. Progressives seem too ready to believe that all limits -- except those of the planet's resources -- are man-made. If someone tells them some pet project of theirs can't be done, they assume the skeptic means simply that he doesn't want it done for some selfish reason or another. At their most reckless, they assume, as did generations of tragic fools during the 20th century, that all obstacles can be overcome by political will. To their minds, it's the moderate belief that "Medicare for all" won't work, not any inherent flaw to the idea, that keeps it from becoming a reality. Again, I'm not learned enough on the subject to say whether it can be done, although it is clear that in any nearly evenly divided legislature passing the thing will be supremely difficult. But that's why we need more than assertion and counterassertion in the debates, though there probably isn't time for much more than that given the bloated field of candidates. Moderate observers like Cupp may feel that progressives like Warren are trying to cut off debate in a bullying way by questioning the courage of skeptics, but moderates should be careful not to use "it can't be done" as yet another method of cutting off debate. And for what it's worth, I would have expected the moderate Democrats to be less likely to accuse opponents of bullying than the presumably more sensitive or p.c. progressives. But when moderates are accused of spinelessness from both left and right in our time, I suppose Cupp's lament is sadly unsurprising.