2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Team Bernie: "Hillary f*cking ignored us in swing states" [View all]Worth repeating -
The only lesson to be learned here is that non-Democrats should never be permitted to run as Democrats.
When Democrats run in primary, they pick a winner and then close ranks together to go into the general election.
Bernie did not close ranks with Hillary completely. He did not move all of his supporters to close ranks with Hillary's supporters to go into the general election. He helped her sure, but you could see daylight between them. You could see it in Bernie's face and his wife's face at the convention. He did not do for Clinton what Clinton did for Obama in 2008. This after the Clinton team included Bernie in the platform and emphasized many of his themes - which were also her themes.
On the GOP side, there was fracture, and that fracture almost cost them the election.
But when Trump started getting traction in the last couple of weeks, because of Comey - you noticed the fracture quickly healed and the GOP came together. People who spoke against him suddenly were okay with him.
Yeah, that bit of daylight -- people like Susan Sarandon and others who were team Bernie wavered for Clinton. In such a squeaker election in a few states - that daylight was enough.