The defection rate (meaning did not vote, or voted for another candidate) of Clinton 2008 primary voters was 50% larger (percentage wise, gross numbers were even larger) than Sanders primary voters in 2016, and the Clinton voters defected straight to the Rethugs McCain (25% or so, thus a negative 2 net vote swing for each one) FAR more (4.3m versus 1.4m or so) than Sanders voters did. IF you count a full 1 million of of Steins 1.45m voters as Sanders primary voters, that means around 7% defected. Add in 6 to 12% (depending on which survey you look at, and more Rethugs crossed over to vote for Sanders in 2016 than did Rethugs for Clinton in 2008, despite the massively overhyped Operation Chaos, which was very limited in actual impact) of Sanders primary voters flipping to Trump, plus around 3% who did not vole and you come up with a defection rate of 20% or so, (IF you say 10% defect to Trump.) Clinton's sheer defection numbers alone dwarf Sanders (5.3 millions defections for Clinton versus 2.8m million for Sanders). Clintons were also far more damaging in terms of impact, as 4.3 million or so were 2-fers (vote taken away from the Dem and also given to the Rethugs, so 8. million net swing) versus 1.4m or so for Sanders, so a net negative impact of 2.8m for D to R flips). That means on a net swing rate, Clinton's defections from D to R was almost 6 million votes MORE impactful in terms of net swing. Sander's voters only came to the fore because of the closeness in some states, but they were not even the biggest force there (in those key states/cities) in terms of fall off.
The falloff of black voters from 2012 (let alone 2008) to 2016 (a massive 20% or so nationally) in just 4 key cities/metro areas (Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee) outpaced the Sanders defections in those cities, and thus that alone also cost Clinton the POTUS, but again it was NOT just one thing.
Comey ratfucked Clinton hard as well, the DNC leaks (and the DNC did admit they were authentic) also lead to a fair chunk of those pissed off Sanders voters, and the insanely poorly timed (and often forgotten) massive Obamacare premium rate increases (right before Comey) hurt as well. Also you have to add in the Russian all-round ratfucking at a multiplicity of levels
NOT saying Sanders was the way to go in 2016, not all all, but we did pick one of the two most unpopular candidates (the other was Trump) for a standard bearer of the 2 big parties in decades. The biggest tragedy was Beau Biden's death, which was the main reason Biden did not run (and I feel would have beaten Trump like a drum in 2016). There is no way his campaign would have gotten all caught up in some of things shown by the those damn DNC leaks, he and his organisation are too professional for that to have happened to extent it did.
In terms of 3rd parties, IF you removed all 3rd party votes from the top 4 vote getters and slid them over to one of the 2 main parties, Trump would have won by even more, quite possibly with a majority of the popular vote.
Of the top 5 third parties, the RW ones (Johnson, McMullin, Castle) garnered around 5.4 million votes (4.5 million for Johnson alone)
Stein's (1.46 million) total was only 21.3% of the total top 4 third party candidate's vote share, the other 78.7% was for RW candidates, or in another way to express it, a net almost 4 million or so MORE RW voters voted for a major 3rd party than did LW leaning 3rd party voters.
It is blatantly false revisionism to blame progressives as the main reason we lost ground in 2010 or 2014. Obamacare alone guaranteed a trend would occur in 2010, a trend born decade after decade for ages (in-power POTUS parties losing seats in the first midterms). It is just false to lay the main share of the blame on the left for the Rethugs flipping 9 senate seats in 2014 and 6 in 2010. Only 4 times in the past 175 years have Dem POTUS's gained Senate seats in any of their midterms, (Cleveland in 1886, Wilson in 1914, FDR in 1934, JFK in 1962). You have a bad tendency to always (and often only) blame the left for every loss, and ignore their help when we win (such as 2020 and Biden, where they campaigned their asses off for him and boosted turnout four our side a lot, especially amongst younger voters). If just 22,000 votes in on 2020 in just 3 states (WI, AZ, and GA) had flipped D to R, Trump would still be president, and the lefties deffo helped on the ground in all three with GOTV (as well as their loyalty in pulling the lever for Biden), plus helped a lot in the 2 GA Senate run-offs with GOTV.) You have a long history of singling out the left for being the sui generis of all our problems, not to mention you also have a somewhat bad historical prognostication record on multiple Congressional races directly involving them.
For instance AOC and your string of opponents you claimed would cause her massive trouble, including supporting an outfight RW Rethug in Dem clothing ringer in Caruso-Cabrera. Also your insistence that if the wonderful Marie Newman beat the odious Lipinski (voted against the ACA, voted against the Dream Act, voted for Rethug border bills, refused to endorse Obama, is an open anti LGBTQ bigot, an open forced birthed who was the co-chair of the pro life bi-partisan caucus, took 1 million usd in RW dark money and used some to outrageously smear Newman as a holocaust denier and ant-Catholic zealot in 2018), we would likely lose a seat we have held non stop since the 1950's (other than a 2 year 1972-74 blip which occurred due to the Nixon v McGovern blowout). Newman won easily in 2020, despite the Trump surge (Newman outperformed Biden) in the district, and despite the Rethugs actually running a decent candidate (Will County Rethugs Board Leader Mike Fricilone), not an actual real neo-Nazi in Arthur J. Jones, like they did in 2018. Jones was a member of the National Socialist White People's Party for eight years and describes himself as a former leader of the American Nazi Party, the NSWPP's former name. He has also been a member of the Populist Party, a far-right political party active in the 1980s and 1990s. It was just ludicrous to claim that seat was in jeopardy for us if Lipinski was bounced out, yet you went there.
Newman is hardly some flame-throwing Berniecrat, you just seem to auto default to the most rightward Dem candidate in almost every case I have seen on here (would love to see one where you did not, I am very open to new info), including in-the-closet Rethugs in Dem clothing and anti-LGBTQ and forced birthers. Imagine if a Berniecrat had taken 1 million or so from RW dark money groups and then brazenly smeared another Dem as a holocaust denier, an anti-Catholic plant, and also making up false official reports about her family's restaurant being filthy and pest infested. The howls of outrage would still be (rightly so) ringing in the halls of DU. Lipinski? I doubt there are more than handful who even know or mention it, and most or all of them were in his district.
Finally, the 6-3 SCOTUS is partially on RGB, as she already had a bad health history, and it is never a good idea to roll the dice on next election outcomes. We also lost the Senate in 2014, not 2016, so there was no guarantees a Clinton win would have even been able to replace her, as now you are opening up a shedload of ahistorical 'what ifs', including the 2018 midterms, which likely would never have been close to a Blue wave (and even with that Blue wave we failed to take back the Senate). We may well repeat this mistake IF Breyer refuses to retire this year or next, and we lose the Senate in 2022. I fully stand by prediction that we will never again see a Dem POTUS's SCOTUS nominee even get a vote from a Rethug controlled Senate, even if they have to stall it out for 4, 6 or more years. Clinton never would have gotten a vote on her SCOTUS nomination in her first term, and there is zero guarantee she would have won re-election in 2020 or we would have tied the Senate in 2020 (as the Blue wave of 2018 (which still failed to retake the Senate for us) likely would have been the reverse of what happened as well, given the already mentioned history of first mid-terms for Dem POTUS's).
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