One article I've read which neatly encapsulates the trajectory of Democratic hand wringing, from blaming Russia, to the Media, to the FBI, to the radical wing of the Democratic party itself, is this very mediocre piece in the Independent Journal Review by someone called Tommy Christopher.
"Until now, though, I've been somewhat reluctant to accept the idea that Vermont Senator and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) shares the same sort of culpability.....There were two bits of new information this week, though, that have changed my mind on this."
I. He cites a Newsweek article which claims that "12 percent of those who backed Sanders [in the Democratic primary elections] actually cast a vote for Trump[in the presidential elections]". The article in question adds fuel to the fire within the Democrats, using particularly polarizing language in the title, to exploit the idea that "Bernie Sanders Voters Helped Trump Win", although this may very well be true in an indirect sense, in an atmosphere which is producing comments such as this from someone called Jen Kirkman: "[Bernie]Go fuck yourself with a chainsaw repeatedly and maybe your tax returns will fall from your bowels. I hate you." & in which usually well meaning and thoughtful types like Steven Pinker are blaming "bernie bros for giving us Trump", the inevitable impression received is that Radical Dems objectives, are anathema to moderate, centrist, Hillary Clinton supporting Dems objectives.
Newsweek is not a publication I read, though I am aware of it to a degree. It strikes me as a fringe publication which in order to compete with larger publications, has to produce work bordering on the controversial, (a brief perusal of Google's returns for a search on Newsweek + Controversial, confirms this; cover pictures, stories, claims within it, are often described that way). The material fact of it's market nieche, probably determines the language & terms they use, consider the different impression from other ways of wording their findings: "12% of Bernie voters felt better represented by Trump, than Hillary", or the more plainly objective "12% of Bernie voters voted for Trump".
Read all three to yourself what impression does each give you?
This fact raises some interesting questions.
Perhaps more than 12% of Clinton voters would have preferred Trump to Sanders, considering the Socialistic platform on which Sanders ran, and the wealthy, upper middle class professionals & wall street aficionados widely known to support her?
Perhaps this 12% were emotionally influenced to vote against their own interests, by what they perceived as the betrayal by the DNC of the only candidate in living memory, which spoke to their concerns? In which case should the exploitation of emotionally unstable by people like Trump, be condoned in the name of "democracy"?
Did people's dissatisfaction with 11 or so years of Democratic Government since 1999, make them susceptible to seduction by a candidate running solely on an anti-establishment, 'rebellion' platform? If so in what ways must Democratic government seek to improve on it's past failures?
Perhaps the campaign run by Bernie had from the start, won people perhaps traditionally more likely to vote Republican or not at all, towards the Democratic ticket, but who after his defeat in the DNC primaries, during the campaign were pushed towards the 'anti-establishment' candidates.
Regardless of the answers to all these hypotheticals, both Sanders & Clinton advocated policies which in the end, would help make some progress towards solving the problems alluded to above, the point would seem to be the failure of the establishment candidate to convince the electorate, & the failure of the radical candidate to convince the establishment. On the former, this seems to be a democratic response to managerial, 'elitist', media savvy, "Blairite", career politicians, played out in the recent two UK Labour Party leadership elections, and exploited in a more cynical fashion by certain conservative MP's, and UKIP during the run up to and resulting Brexit vote. Christopher actually does accept this, 'explaining' the couched statements of Clinton as "too rehearsed". This style of politics may even be traced back to Bill Clinton, so it would be a fitting end if the circle was completed with Hillary's electoral failure & now public rejection of centrist 'Third Way' compromise, which never achieves enough.
The key to the contemporary radicals success is indeed the communities who gather behind them in a somewhat organic manner, it is to them Sanders & Corbyn are beholden, but on a deeper level they all share a similar cause, they have not conducted various focus groups, polled public opinion etc,. but instead have persistently demonstrated adherence to a set of cultural, ethical & economic values throughout their lives & careers. It would be good to have seen Hillary make a symbolic concession to Sanders & adopted some of his rhetorical positions, ie a Socialist vision to solve some of the massive problems financial & foreign interests are exploiting to weaken their main economic & ideological enemy, the United States Government. The centrists, in the UK Labour Party have by and large swallowed their pride, & are coming round to actual Class politics, trying to unlearn everything they've learned in University about managing expectations, negotiating 'mutually beneficial' outcomes, networking with power players etc,. though for political royalty like Hillary it would surely be much harder.
II. Christopher's second piece of evidence in the case against Sanders, is a tweet™ dug up by Clinton loyalist, & founder of recent startup Verrit™; Peter Daou. "But still, didn't Sanders do everything he could to get his supporters not to vote for Trump? Some of those third-party votes and sit-outs may be on him, but why would a Sanders voter ever think it was OK to vote for Trump? As my old friend and former Clinton adviser Peter Daou pointed out, this is how:
That's one decontextualized tweet, but I remember watching the run up to the election quite avidly, his statements regarding Trump were resolutely against him throughout, his language & opposition was unequivocal, from this public announcement in March 2016[1], to the brilliant speech in which he explicitly advocated for Hillary Clinton at a campaign Rally in Madison, Wisconsin (10/5/2016), where he conveyed more passion & commitment than was evident in the whole of Clinton's campaign, while denouncing the burgeoning Oligarchy, exploitation of the poor & subsequent class divide which has been allowed to grow for decades, openly calling for an end to the rampant abuses of the very interests Trump represented, which in a grand display of hypocrisy, the latter was quicker to denounce than Mrs Clinton.I do not believe that most of the people who are thinking about voting for Mr. Trump are racist or sexist.— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 5, 2016
The Right Wing in America, indulged it's most extreme elements and essentially won the presidency on an anti-establishment platform, imagine Hillary Clinton even contemplating doing that, imagine the anxiety Mr Christopher, not to mention all Clinton's donors, family members & international associates would experience at such a prospect!
_________
[1]
This article from the National Policy Review, citing Pew research polls, offers another insight to just how unpopular Hillary was/is, in Sept 2016 the majority of people voting for her were doing so simply because she wasn't Trump, 32% which I assume would have been formerly sympathetic to the campaign of Senator Sanders. "Pew found, from more than 4,000 interviews conducted online and by mail, that the "main reason" supporters of both candidates were voting for their candidate was because "he is not Clinton," and "she is not Trump.""
