2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: How Bernie's campaign contributed to Trump's win. [View all]DanTex
(20,709 posts)He's an old school socialist. He had no idea his campaign would get as big as it did.
And when it caught on, for a while he thought, "hey, maybe I could become president." So he kept going with the message that got him as far as he did.
I think that the older and wiser Bernie of today would not have done the same things that the Bernie of last year did. Especially attacking Hillary after he had not mathematical chance of winning the primaries.
I think he knows he was part of why we have President Trump. Sure, in interviews he says that he had nothing to do with Trump winning, but he knows he did. What else is he going to say? He was the one who turned young (white) lefties against Hillary, with his empty anti-establishment rhetoric.
What he did had disastrous consequences. But it wasn't intentional. He was just trying to be an rabble-rouser, and got in over his head.