Remember when Hillary won the primary and we lost a bunch of obnoxious voices here

[betsuni]

41. It was never about policy or political ideas. Turned into something else.

It didn't have to, it was damaging for the country. No large policy differences/ideological goals: go after character, demonize as immoral evil corrupt, a dangerous enemy of the people. JPR was the place to go to indulge in hatefests with fellow pessimistic negative club members who knew all the slogans and buzzwords and conspiracy theories. Identity. Sane people eventually catch on after the initial high of being in the club wears off. Now it's the nutty remnants.

"To many observers, the Democratic nomination was not primarily a story of social identity. The story was the fight between the progressive and centrist wings of the party. Sanders supporters were supposed to be well to the left of Clinton supporters on taxes, trade, health care, and so on. But that was not the case: Clinton and Sanders supporters were mostly similar on these and other issues. The choice between Clinton and Sanders depended little on policy battles and more on identities grounded in partisanship and race.

"But although Sanders voters tended to describe themselves as more liberal than did Clinton supporters, the two groups differed little on economic policies. This was true when VOTER Survey respondents had been interviewed earlier, in December 2011. People who became Sanders supporters were no more likely than people who became Clinton supporters to favor government-provided health care or tax increases on the wealthy -- although they were somewhat more likely to favor government regulation of business. Combining the three questions into an economic policy index showed Sanders and Clinton supporters to be only 0.02 points apart on a 0-2 scale. ... In both surveys, Sanders supporters expressed somewhat less positive views of the economy than did Clinton supporters. ... Sanders supporters were also more likely than Clinton supporters to say that there was little or no opportunity for the average person to get ahead and that it was harder to 'move up the income ladder.' Of course, those are sentiments that Sanders had been expressing for months, which may mean that Sanders supporters in this survey were merely echoing him. But regardless, differences in concern about the economy and economic opportunity did not translate into distinctive policy preferences.

"The political scientist Daniel Hopkins found at best small differences on policy issues between eventual Clinton and Sanders supporters when they had been interviewed in earlier years. Hopkins argued that the factors behind Sanders's support 'do not suggest that it is grounded in enduring liberalism.' The political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, who were the first to describe the findings from the January 2016 survey, wrote that 'Mr. Sander's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologies.'"

John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck, "Identity Crisis, The 206 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America"