He was so inspiring that he lost by millions against a milquetoast, boring establishment candidate? You're not making any sense.
This blind idolatry of Bernie is a coping mechanism, I get it. But let's not pretend like this thought experiment is a viable alternative. You have no idea how Trump was gonna run against Bernie because it never happened. On day 1 of the general he could've painted Bernie as a pinko commie and it could've been even more disastrous for Bernie.
Hillary had been prepping for the Primary for four years and all the party infrastructural, relationships and money. Bernie decided to run last minute because there were no progressive candidates to challenge her. His campaign weren't even fully staffed until December because it was a message campaign until it was apparent that there was a real chance to run away with the whole thing. The level of support Bernie got shocked the campaign and it simply didn't have the time to properly capitalize on the support quick enough or the time to execute on plans to court more demographics within the party, specifically blacks in the southern states.
And that doesn't even touch the fact that the Clinton campaign and the DNC were actively colluding to smear Bernie and drive him out of the race. The DNC was actively working with Clinton surrogates and the media to smear Bernie and stifle coverage. It's not an accident that the debates were place in ways to minimize viewership to. The DNC did that to put a stasis on Clinton's front runner status.
It's not a coincidence that Google, CNN, and NBC would always put superdelegates in the delegate totals. Every Primary, even the ones Bernie won would get reported as "Looks like Clinton is walking away tonight with 150 delegates, sanders with 50" even though Sanders would be walking away with most of the pledged delegates. The DNC wanted their friends in the media to report it that way because they knew it would confuse and discourge Bernie voters. They made sure results were not reported that way in 2008's primary.
And having volunteer and worked for his campaign it did exactly that. Every single election I had to deal with a lot of Bernie voters who voted, and despite Bernie winning didn't understand why he walked away he walked away with barely any delegates and having to explain that superdelegates don't vote until the convention and that they don't really count. And people would always walk away feeling confused, upset and cheated. Even after our victories. When you see Bernie supporters saying the primary was rigged and that the DNC cheated, keep in mind that the DNC and Clinton campaigns, and mainstream news organizations allied with Clinton,
deliberately distorted the perception of the primary results to cultivate that feeling.
It is absolutely insane. INSANE that the DNC let a candidate at unlikable as Hillary, who had an active FBI criminal investigation ongoing to even run in the race. The DNC new Hillary was going to have trouble in the GE and that she was an extremely risky, toxic candidate. It was absolutely in their right to put constant pressure on Hillary to leave the race when she was consistently pulling statistically tied to Trump in head to head match ups. And if they actually cared about protecting the country from a clown fascist they would have done exactly that.
Bernie walked away from the primary the most well liked and popular sitting senator with highs of 68% approval rating. And the convention wasn't even about him. Clinton consistently had a 35% approval rating and she peaked at a whopping 50% after the convention. And it quickly when back to her average 35% approval rating. That difference in likability alone would have made the difference. Yeah, Bernie's approval never suffered the full brunt of the Republican smear machine, but 60%+ approval is a much better place to start from than 35%.
And every Republican has painted every democrat as a communist socialist. Literally every election. They called Hillary Clinton a corrupt commie socialist every single day. Things work much better when your candidate isn't mealy mouthed and scared of their own shadow who runs scared over the nasty names your opponents call you. It's why Trump's scandals had a hard time doing any real damage to him. Because he didn't run scared and go on an apology tour on all the news shows crying and saying he'll do better and how he let everyone down. Being called a socialist didn't hurt Bernie in the primary and it wouldn't have hurt him in the general because he didn't run away from it.
Can those people be summarily dismissed? That's not a reasonable statement in any context.
Seriously. Bernie didn't poison the well with young voters. Clinton showing her clear arrogance and contempt for the half of the party that voted Bernie by picking Kaine as VP instead of Bernie, Warren, Ellison poisoned the waters.
He has no scandals, a likable personality, a strong record on minorities, won every race he has and 4 years of Trump might bring people back.
He's not neccesarily the most interesting (nor is he my first pick) but he's a compassionate person with a strong record and no scandals. He can beat Trump.
Tim Kaine would get JEB!ed by Trump. It would be a slaughter. If you think Kaine can win against Trump, then you don't understand why Clinton and the DNC lost.
