Back in 2016, there were some Democrats who were supporting Trump in the Republican primaries because they wanted Hillary to face off against him in the general election - that even though they knew he would represented greater *damage *if elected, that he stood a lesser *chance *of winning the election - a calculated bet.
That didn’t work out, but there are some Republicans supporting Bernie nowadays for the same reason - they see him as greater damage if elected, but less chance of winning the election, hence a sensible bet.
Given the choice of facing a tamer opponent (if you’re a Democrat, then, say, Mitt Romney) who in this hypothetical stands a higher chance of winning, or a more dangerous foe (Trump) who stands a lesser chance of winning, which would you prefer?
(If you are Republican, then maybe you can substitute someone like Joe Biden as the less harmful centrist, as opposed to more dangerous foes such as Bernie or someone like AOC when she hits presidential-eligibility age.)
I think wanting the Other Side’s more “dangerous” (but allegedly easier to beat) nominee as your party’s opponent is a reckless and irresponsible attitude to have.
I don’t accept that Bernie Sanders is really the Democratic Party’s equivalent of Trump–in terms of his basic integrity and character he’s vastly better than the narcissistic bigoted demagogue we’ve got now–but if you truly and sincerely believe that one possible nominee from the party you don’t support would somehow be a danger to the country, you damned well should want a thing like that stopped sooner rather than later.
And sorry for the double post, but this is hardly some abstract hypothetical scenario here. We aren’t on the timeline where we’re all sitting around lamenting President Jeb Bush’s big tax cuts for the ultra-rich and his Federalist Society judicial picks, and saying “Boy, if only the Republicans had (somehow!) nominated Donald Trump! Ha, can you imagine that?!? Boy, Hillary would have been able to beat him easily!”
We live in the alternate reality where Mr. Spock has the goatee, and we’re all in the agony booth. Be careful what you [del]wish[/del] vote for, because it might [del]come true[/del] get elected.