# To get this out of the way, I don't think Bernie would have won either. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 9, 2016, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148 "2016-11-09T07:10:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/101 "2016-11-15T20:12:24Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > Well, as it was they junked Bernie since he couldn’t defeat Trump whilst Hillary **would**. > > Easily. > > How did that work out again? Clinton failed in a very close election. You didnt know that? So sure, Maybe Bernie would have won. Or maybe not. But Hillary was the Peoples choice in the primaries, what should we have done? Invalidate their votes? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/102 "2016-11-15T20:12:38Z")
> **[The Myths That Cost Democrats the Election](https://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044)** > > Awash in false conspiracy theories, protest voters and angry non-voters put Trump in the White House. Points made by this article: 1. There was no “conspiracy” by the DNC to sink Sanders in favor of Clinton — There were more debates on varying days of the week than in previous years and the so-called unwatchable weekend debates were well viewed — The e-mails are all from a time by which Sanders had already lost the nomination but some supporters were trying to pull some sort of coup to hand him the nomination anyway — Once it was clear that Clinton was going to be the nominee, there’s absolutely no reason for the DNC not to start working for her victory 1. Sanders would likely have lost — The Republicans had oppo material on Sanders that would have beaten him bloody, and he had not been tested by that kind of vicious level of attack ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/103 "2016-11-15T20:21:04Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > [The Myths Democrats Swallowed That Cost Them the Presidential Election - Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044) > > Points made by this article: > > 1. There was no “conspiracy” by the DNC to sink Sanders in favor of Clinton > > — There were more debates on varying days of the week than in previous years and the so-called unwatchable weekend debates were well viewed > > — The e-mails are all from a time by which Sanders had already lost the nomination but some supporters were trying to pull some sort of coup to hand him the nomination anyway > > — Once it was clear that Clinton was going to be the nominee, there’s absolutely no reason for the DNC not to start working for her victory > > 1. Sanders would likely have lost > > — The Republicans had oppo material on Sanders that would have beaten him bloody, and he had not been tested by that kind of vicious level of attack That is a great article. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/104 "2016-11-15T20:21:56Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > [ > > 1. Sanders would likely have lost > > — The Republicans had oppo material on Sanders that would have beaten him bloody, and he had not been tested by that kind of vicious level of attack Is there a good reason to think that the Sanders oppo research that was based on 30 yr old stories of support for the Sandinistas or extending sister-city status to Russian cities would have been devastatingly more effective than 10 year old “pussy grabbing” and Putin admiration oppo research? Or that either was not pitiful compared to a public ongoing FBI investigation? ---
**Author:** ![Evan\_Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@Evan\_Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evan_Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/105 "2016-11-15T20:36:00Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Clinton failed in a very close election. You didnt know that? > > So sure, Maybe Bernie would have won. Or maybe not. > > But Hillary was the Peoples choice in the primaries, what should we have done? Invalidate their votes? And maybe either Sanders or any other Democrat nominated would have gone further than a ‘close election’, and wiped the floor with Trump. It takes a very special person to lose to Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/106 "2016-11-15T22:05:58Z")
> [@Evan\_Drake](#): > > It takes a very special person to lose to Trump. He’s beaten every political opponent he’s ever faced, from either side of the aisle. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/107 "2016-11-15T22:21:53Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Is there a good reason to think that the Sanders oppo research that was based on 30 yr old stories of support for the Sandinistas or extending sister-city status to Russian cities would have been devastatingly more effective than 10 year old “pussy grabbing” and Putin admiration oppo research? Or that either was not pitiful compared to a public ongoing FBI investigation? The ‘on unemployment until his mid-30s’ and ‘Sandinistas’ and ‘Russian honeymoon’ and ‘wife essentially bankrupted the college she was running’ and ‘child out of wedlock’ and ‘he’s 74 and not a young 74’ and ‘stole electricity from a neighbor’ and ‘voted to ship Vermont nuclear waste to a Hispanic community’ stuff all would have hurt Sanders. But what would have completely deep-sixed his chances is the ‘Lifelong Politician’ and ‘25 years in Congress’ facts. To the extent that Trump voters were voting Trump _not_ out of open racism or open anti-immigration views, they were voting for Trump because he was not part of the Washington Establishment. Sanders could not have won over the voters ‘sick of Washington.’ He had no chance with them. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/108 "2016-11-15T22:32:24Z")
Ridiculous. Stealing electricity from his neighbors? He’s gonna lose the election because he snuck an extension cord out of somebody’s garage 40 years ago? And his various stints as a candidate for outsider political parties and independent candidate brands him as a political insider or “career politician”? Seriously reaching. ---
**Author:** ![OriginalGangster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ea5d25/32.png) [@OriginalGangster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OriginalGangster)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/109 "2016-11-15T22:37:51Z")
Trump was able to mobilize a lot of mad single straight men, who often are ignored & forgotten in favor of LGBTQ. The right is puritanical, and the left only cares about men who fall under the umbrella of LGBTQ. A lot of these guys view Trump as the ultimate playboy & seemed to think he would legalize prostitution or import foreign women while deporting illegal men, thus improving the gender ratio in America, which isn’t good for straight men. The alt-right is oftentimes found overlapping with the “red pill” community. These are the men who viewed Trump as their messiah. Even with the 800K + votes thanks to larger states such as California & NY these men still prevailed thanks to the electoral system. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/110 "2016-11-15T22:58:44Z")
Here’s how I see it. Yes, in the hypothetical before the election it’s reasonable to say the Rove hate machine could have hurt Bernie. It’s reasonable that he might have turned off the centrists. It’s somewhat reasonable that his socialist tag might have turned off people, disregarding that it turn off that many people when Obama was constantly tagged with it. But we have hindsight now. We know Hillary mainly lost because of a big failure to get voters out. We know the “change” voters were a pivotal force. We know all of Trump’s stupid shit he’s said didn’t much depress his votes compared to the previous R candidate. So it’s not reasonable to assume a different D candidate, who’s done stupid stuff in the past, would have obviously done worse than Hillary. Possibly the socialist tag might have killed him. But can you honestly say supporting the Sandanistas and being on unemployment 40 years ago would have killed Dem turnout more than an ongoing FBI investigation? Do people who lean Dem hate Sandanistas and Unemployment insurance that much? ---
**Author:** ![Sherrerd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sherrerd/32/8_2.png) [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/111 "2016-11-15T23:00:24Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Ridiculous. Stealing electricity from his neighbors? He’s gonna lose the election because he snuck an extension cord out of somebody’s garage 40 years ago? And his various stints as a candidate for outsider political parties and independent candidate brands him as a political insider or “career politician”? Seriously reaching. Is this a reply to me? If so: if I’d posted anything like _'he’d have lost because he snuck an extension cord out of somebody’s garage 40 years ago_,’ then your post would have been an effective counter-argument. Since that’s not what I said, it’s really _not_ a very good counter. (But then again perhaps you were replying to some other post than mine, pasted below: > [@Sherrerd](#): > > The ‘on unemployment until his mid-30s’ and ‘Sandinistas’ and ‘Russian honeymoon’ and ‘wife essentially bankrupted the college she was running’ and ‘child out of wedlock’ and ‘he’s 74 and not a young 74’ and ‘stole electricity from a neighbor’ and ‘voted to ship Vermont nuclear waste to a Hispanic community’ stuff all would have hurt Sanders. > > But what would have completely deep-sixed his chances is the ‘Lifelong Politician’ and ‘25 years in Congress’ facts. To the extent that Trump voters were voting Trump not out of open racism or open anti-immigration views, they were voting for Trump because he was not part of the Washington Establishment. > > Sanders could not have won over the voters ‘sick of Washington.’ He had no chance with them. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/112 "2016-11-15T23:03:28Z")
How did he steal electricty? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/113 "2016-11-15T23:05:09Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > So it’s not reasonable to assume a different D candidate, who’s done stupid stuff in the past, would have obviously done worse than Hillary. Well, you are somewhat right. It’s not unreasonable to _guess_ he _might_ have won, sure. It is unreasonable to say that he\* would have. \* ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148/114 "2016-11-15T23:08:31Z")
Oh for sure. Who knows? But the arguments that he couldn’t possibly have done better fall flat. His weirdness in the past aren’t worse than Trump’s and calling him establishment is laughable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/to-get-this-out-of-the-way-i-dont-think-bernie-would-have-won-either/771148.md?page=5)