Isn't this what they have been doing? What nationally prominent democrats are vocal proponents of progressive social policies now? I certainly don't remember harris running on any of the things being implied here.

> cut some dead weight

This "dead weight" is the rights of minorities to participate in public life plain and simple. This is exactly why leftists are so skeptical or even hostile to "centrists." Once you're calculating whose rights you can drop for political convenience you share a lot more ideologically with the far right than with historic liberalism.