Quote:
Originally posted by Alejandrawrrr
Yet independents vastly preferred Bernie to Hillary  Out of all the states he won, hardly any of them were closed primaries where only registered democrats would vote (Hillary smashed him among usual, lifelong democrats). He relied on independents to win, which is why his campaign was pretty much considered over after he ran out of caucuses and didn't get a sizable lead (or a lead at all) heading into the big closed primaries.
Saying Bernie would do worse than Hillary because independents wouldn't go for him is probably second to saying Bernie would not have had the support of Millennials, in terms of being just completely off the mark. The reason Bernie lost the primary was because of older voters (I think 50+), and POC (who didn't even turn out for Hillary when she needed them). These people would have largely voted for the democratic nominee regardless, or if Hillary had campaigned for the nominee like in 2008. Unfortunately Sanders' base (millennials, independents, and rural whites who feel the "democratic party has left them" with it's championing of trade deals and focus on social issues they don't care about) was already anti Hillary enough that Bernie endorsing her was not enough to sway them. Many were first-time/disillusioned voters, who simply weren't voting after Bernie lost. Hence the spike in young people voting third party, and the overall decline in #s of 18-29 year olds voting blue. |
So much of this is wrong, so I'll go down from the top. Those polls that showed that Bernie was favored more by independents are the same polls that had Hillary up by 3-7 points on election day. Polling is not reliable anymore, especially after this election (I also saw many polls during primaries that had Hillary ahead with independents, so it can't be trusted). Either way, Bernie supporters didn't show up at the primaries in big enough numbers to make him the nominee, so what makes you think they would during the actual election? He wasn't strong enough with democrats and independents overall. Yes, there was sketchy stuff with the DNC behind the scenes, but that didn't change the fact that Bernie supporters didn't vote for their candidate enough. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, but they didn't and that gives no reason to think they would for the general election. And don't try it using the excuse that there were so many independent voters who just didn't have the opportunity to vote for him.
Bernie DID have the support of millennials, but they didn't vote for him passionately. We saw that as he got crushed at the primaries. They stayed at home tweeting about him instead. Overall, young voters weren't excited enough about Hillary, yes. But millions of blue-collar democrats (POC as well) would not have supported a candidate with views like Bernie. States like Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina would have had no chance of going blue with Bernie, and you're living in la la land if you think they would've. The people who decided this election were not the people on social media or millennials. They were blue collar working americans.
Basically, we can blame it on a million different things now and act like Bernie would've somehow won. But voters didn't turn out for Bernie at the primaries so there is no reason to think they would in a bigger general election especially when so much of this country is naturally against socialist ideals.
