In case you don't watch Morning Joe, it's been obvious for months the hosts are pulling for Joe Biden. They're much more comfortable with the politics they know, and they want things to go back to a "normal" most Democrats won't settle for much longer.

"Mayor Buttigieg and everyone else in this race has to figure out, do they have a counter to the economic populism that's being advocated by Senator Warren?" Robert Costa said.

"Her performance is because of her message. That message is powerful and it competes with Trump's own economic populism. So you can score points on different issues going after Congressman O'Rourke or others, but where's that core competition with her message?"

"It's not enough to say wait a second, you're going to take away private health insurance from 165 million Americans?" Scarborough said.

"She's speaking to the grievances people have with the global economy. instead of taking the immigrants as the target, she's taking the company as the target," Costa said.

"A lot of people say it's time you tax assets and not just raise taxes."

"There's just not enough money. I said this about Donald Trump and his promises in 2016. I say it now. There is not enough money for a country that's $23 trillion in debt to pay for one tenth of what she's proposing. Now that, you know, when somebody brought that up on the stage, that inconvenient truth, she said something like 'I don't know why we're running just to say what we can't do.' Well, you know what? I can't get a rocket pack on my back and fly to Mars after the show. That doesn't mean that, you know, I don't love America or whatever. She can't do it. It's impossible. We don't have the money," Scarborough said.

David Ignatius was skeptical that Americans want radical change. He said they were "exhausted" by Donald Trump.

OR: Hear me out, maybe they're exhausted by Donald Trump AND working three jobs AND healthcare insurance they can't afford to actually use AND running as fast as they can and still falling behind. What TV bobbleheads say counts -- not because it's true, but because it hypnotizes viewers into complacency. "The people on the teevee keep saying what a great economy we have right now, so it must just be me," they tell themselves.

Just a reminder: The current Department of Defense budget is about $693,058,000,000. Approximately $684,985,000,000 is discretionary spening, while $8,081,000,000 is mandatory. (And of course, these are just the numbers that are on the books and don't include off-the-books operations.)

Now, there's nothing Joe and Mika would like better than to go back to the old rules in the old game. They can convince themselves voters aren't willing to go left, but polls show they are --- at least, on economic policy. Sure, they want things to calm down after Trump, but they want some economic security and they can't help but notice where all the money is going. (Upward.)

So the point isn't that the Morning Joe hosts are attacking Warren's policies. Right now, she's the frontrunner and it's to be expected. It's that they see themselves as the old Confederacy, the anointed gatekeepers for a cherished, vanishing way of life that includes someone from the Old Guard (like Joe Biden) back in the Oval Office.

To think otherwise would mean Mika and Joe were out of the game, and we can't have that.