2016 Postmortem

...you are literally saying that a sizable chunk of Bernie supporters are going to switch over to Trump. You are saying they are as gullible and as stupid as his current supporters who believe that he is going to not only build a wall along the Mexican border, but make Mexico pay for it.

I do not believe that Bernie supporters are that stupid or gullible. If Donald Trump attempts to embrace economic populism as Bernie has, I believe the overwhelming and vast majority of his supporters will see right through it.

Besides, Hillary is almost as unmoored politically as him, and if she believed that Trump was going to beat her because she wasn't economically populist enough, she would become more economically populist. Just like she did against Bernie in the primaries, and just like Bernie Sander's supporters saw through that bullshit during the primaries, they will see through that bullshit by her and Trump in the general election.

As for Bernie winning independents, well he didn't do it here in Virginia. This was a primary state where anyone could vote in any primary they wanted, regardless of party registration. All you do is show up, tell them what primary you want to vote in, and you can vote in it. He lost Virginia by 29% with 64.3% going to Hillary and 35.2% going to Sanders.

The simple truth is that Bernie Sanders has been unable to deliver on his promised revolution. He was unable to unite core constituencies of the Democratic Party coalition behind him, and he wasn't able to bring in a flood of new voters into the process. In fact, in the overwhelming majority of primaries voting is down from what it was in 2008 when Obama was on the ticket.

I don't think this is a rejection of Bernie Sander's agenda, but rather his failures as a politician and a candidate. I agree with you that a majority of people in the party actually support his agenda, as well as a good number of people outside of the party. However, supporting a particular item on an agenda is not enough if that is not what motivates people to come out and vote. Most people are only motivated to vote by one or two issues for them.

For example, my mother is not a liberal or a leftist. She has voted for both Democrats and Republicans in the past. She is one of those 'mythical independents' that everyone loves to talk about. By and large, she is politically illiterate and hates politics in general. However, one thing that really motivates her to support or hate a candidate is their stance on women's rights--particularly abortion. That is one issue that will fuel political passion in my mother like nothing else. So, what do I do to ensure that she votes for the Democratic candidate every time? I show her the stance the Republican in the race has on women's issues and abortion, and the stance the Democratic candidate in the race has on women's issues and abortion. Over multiple election cycles of seeing Republicans being so anti-choice, anti-birth control, and anti-woman my mother has started to develop a hatred for the Republican party in general. This was not an accident. It happened because I knew the issue that she was passionate about, and made sure she was fully informed on that issue.

She supports many of Bernie Sander's issues on economics, by the way, but none of those issues motivate her. She doesn't even associate those issues with Bernie Sanders, primarily because the only time she pays attention to politics is near an election, and all other times she could do without. She is very much a low information voter and so are most Americans--many of whom Bernie Sanders needed to reach, pull into the party, but didn't.

My mother voted for Hillary, not because she likes Hillary (she doesn't), but because she felt that Hillary was the most qualified and because as a woman, my mother feels that Hillary will be good on women's issues. She felt that Bernie Sanders "just wants to close down all the banks" (in her words).

I personally ended up supporting Hillary for all together different reasons. Primarily, because I felt that Bernie was overselling what he could achieve as President, and that he could end up damaging the liberal movement in the long run. He didn't show a willingness to really fight against the Third Way Democrats--for example, when DWS was fucking him (as she continues to do), he didn't call for her to resign, and he didn't campaign for her primary opponent. He let her walk all over him. Bernie Sanders is a bridge builder not a bridge burner, but if the left wants to take control of the Democratic Party that is only going to happen in one of two ways: the Third Way Democrats are terrorized into submission or they are purged from the party and its leadership. I support both approaches. Bernie Sanders promised a revolution, but it was some disgusting hippie peace circle nonsense revolution where no one actually fights or gets hurt. I understand that revolutions look a lot like what is happening in the Republican party right now--a hostile take over. I understood that had Bernie Sanders become President, he would have knives in his back not only from Republicans, but from Third Way Democrats. I understood that had Bernie Sanders become President, that virtually nothing he had promised would get achieved because he has next to no true allies, and a failure to get at least part of what he promised could discourage liberals from being involved in the political process in the future. I knew that no one on the left expected anything good from Hillary, so if she failed to deliver on her promises, it wouldn't shock or surprise anyone. She was a safe placeholder. We need a Democrat to secure Obama's legacy, and the meager gains we've made on the left. Hillary will fill that role. Meanwhile, as liberals, we need to turn our attention toward local, state, and congressional elections. We need to make sure that liberals win, that Democrats in safe districts who are Third Way are purged from the party, and that a strong liberal coalition develops in the Congress. This is what the revolution actually looks like.