I don't have a problem with this post. I think you are giving Judo a bit of a hard time, when you should get back to giving me a hard time (ha ha!), but today I'm a happy camper. Why? I'm damned happy with Bernie's speech last night. He had me worried after losing control of the crowd earlier in the day, but the man came through. You might recall that a long time ago, I predicted that he'd end up coming around. That was when you still thought Bernie could win. OK, he didn't win, but he did make a powerful impact on the Democratic Party platform, something Democrats like me can appreciate, and something I hope some of his more ardent supporters can learn to appreciate. Bernie pushed the party to the left, and for that, I'm grateful.
Jim Hightower has a good article on why despite hopes to the contrary by the Dem and obviously the GOP establishment the Bernie movement will not go away. 1) Hillary is a masterful (or is it cynical )politician and can see which way the wind is blowing. This has always been my hope as I really don't think she would act like a progressive otherwise. To quote someone else, she believes in whatever helps win the election at hand. 2) The movement of the vast majority of the young is organic, not created by the media or a few rich sponsors. 3) It arises from genuine pain and a desire to address what is causing this pain. http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/campaigns-end-on-election-day-revolutions-don-t
Hillary is never going to get 100% of the Bernie supporters. Some of these guys at the protests outside the DNC are talking up communism and burning American flags and Israeli flags. Even with the platform that accommodate some more Bernie ideas, the Democratic party is just not going to be a fit for these folks. In fact, if they are anything like the Nader people that I knew in college, some of them probably think that voting itself is a corrupt institution. Honestly, having some of those more extreme folks supporting the Democratic ticket vocally can be more of a minus than a plus. I don't think Hillary necessarily wants them associated with the brand.
I agree with this wrt to the type of folks you are talking about, but think they are a relatively small minority among the Bernie supporters. That being said these often times marginal people in small "left" sects view Hillary and the pretty disgraceful way the DNC has treated the Sanders campaign as their great opportunity to recruit disaffected Bernie supportrs to their near cult like groups. I frankly hate to see this.
It's a tragedy that Bernie never got to run up against Trump in hindsight. Most people believed that Hillary was the safer pick and there was no way Bernie a socialist like Bernie could have gotten Americans to vote for him, well looking at the map and what ended up happening in the rust belt there's no way Bernie would have lost PA, MI, or WIS. Bernie spoke directly to the people in those states who ended up flipping for Trump. He would not have needed the minority vote in those states to carry them.
That rotting chump would've gotten slaughtered in the debates. Hillary practically did the best performance against Trump and she basically drawed.
Democrats would be foolish to believe this. Trump got less votes in those stats than mitt Romney did. The difference was the lack of black votes that turned out in Milwaukee and Detroit. Go look at raw vote totals it made all the difference. Clinton won the same type of percentage there that obama did but the numbers were lower. Bernie had even worse support among minorities. His only potential upside would have been a boost in young people.