Matt Taibbi (emphasis mine):

When the Democrats had a legitimate electoral threat in the Republicans to wave in front of their voters, they used that as currency to buy their voters’ indulgence as they deregulated Wall Street, widened the drug war, abandoned unions in favor of free-trade deals and other horrors, and vastly increased the prison population, among innumerable other things.

But now that the rival electoral threat is mostly gone, they want permission to take the whole primary season off so they can hoard their money for massive ad buys targeting swing votes in Tennessee or whatever. In other words, even though the road ahead is easier for them, they want increased latitude to take their core voters for granted.

The Democrats could take this godsend of a Trump situation and use it as an opportunity to finally have a healthy primary season debate about what they want to stand for in the future. But nah to that. They’ll probably just hoover donor cash and use press surrogates to bash progressives the way they always have. Trump or no Trump, if politicians don’t have to work for your vote, they won’t.