General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Sanders talks universal Medicare, and 1.1 million people click to watch him [View all]LiberalLovinLug
(14,202 posts)Would he have won the general. Of COURSE the reality was Hillary won the primary. Obviously I'm not disputing that. That fact is a red herring to the argument. Also a red herring is that she 'won' the election....by voter count, that's not in dispute.
But again....more agreement with the, if they are anything they are relentless, Bernie Bashers. "Sanders was never vetted, never attacked by the right (or left)."......EXACTLY!
To then leap frog from there to "Had he been the nominee, The GOP would heve destrtoyed him." is highly debatable. The last chance for Bernie was the California primaries. Culminating on June 7th. That means the GOP and Putin would have had only a few months to mount whatever faux scandals they could concoct. (Compare that to literally decades of the 'vast right wing conspiracy' that Hillary had been faced with and the monstrous character they had created of her to a large segment of voters). But tax returns?...not an issue against Trump. Honeymoon in Russia? Compared to sleeping with Putin?...no contest.
Sorry but no one really knows what would have been the outcome. Its just my opinion based on the facts that he'd still get the vast majority of Democrats to vote Democrat (you would have voted for him right?). Add to that the higher Independent support, which in a hockey analogy is like a "4 point game" when playing within your own division. As in...whatever Independent votes Sanders got, would NOT have gone to Trump. Add to that that younger voters that may have come out. Add to that his greater support in the North East Rustbelt. And IMO, add to that he could engage a stage better than Hillary. She was great in a lot of ways, but her strength was not the charismatic stage presence level of a Trump... or a Sanders. I would have loved to see how he'd have dealt with Trump in those debates.