Why Sanders lost, and why I think it matters.

[DanTex]

10. The "sore winner" phenomenon, as you call it, is about one thing and one thing only.

Last edited Fri Jul 1, 2016, 06:27 PM - Edit history (2)

We want to defeat Trump, this is the most important thing, and we don't see Bernie helping. At best he's treading water, and at worst, he's helping Trump with his non-endorsement and his defiant words. I think he has a responsibility to, as he put it, do everything in his power to stop Trump. And he's not doing that. Instead he's throwing his weight around trying to get things into the party platform, which is a symbolic document that makes no difference to anything. Trump becoming president is not a symbol, it's a real disaster.

In fact, a lot of Hillary supporters (like me), would be thrilled to celebrate how well Bernie has done, if not for the way he's acting right now. I'm happy to see the party turn left (and hopefully the country too). If Bernie's movement is going to move forward, he needs to attract people who are not already part of it. Do you honestly think he's doing that right now?

I think it's quite presumptuous to claim that if only there were a few more months then older voters and PoC would have finally woken up to Bernie. The numbers don't bear that out. The polling gap plateaued a few months before the end of the primaries, and it held at about 10 points since then. Bernie did hit is top number, it's just that it wasn't as high as Hillary's. But beyond being factually incorrect, it's insulting to Hillary voters, suggesting that they are just a little slow on the uptake. It would be like saying that those young Bernie voters would vote Hillary once they get a few years of wisdom and life experience under their belts.

Because there are a lot of good reasons to vote for Hillary. She's the most qualified candidate to run for president in many decades. She's progressive, and she's brilliantly smart, and she's been around to have seen a number of successes and failures and learn from them. There are good reasons to vote for Bernie too. We had two good candidates.