2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL: The Bernie Sanders voters who would choose Trump over Clinton [View all]revbones
(3,660 posts)It would seem to not have any basis in reality.
I would agree that most of Sanders supporters will support the nominee regardless of whether it is Clinton. The problem comes into play when you understand that there is a core difference between Hillary supporters and Bernie supporters.
Hillary supporters have an idol they project beliefs onto. Bernie supporters have a person running that happens to be honest, not on the take and have represented and advocated for most if not all of their specific policy beliefs consistently for 40+ years.
Hillary supporters will contort themselves into pretzels about her Goldman Sachs ties, her transcripts, the corruption, the changing positions after receiving donor money (bankruptcy bill), her lobbying for the Crime Bill, Welfare Reform, NAFTA, TPP, Colombia Free Trade Agreement, her email scandal, her Iraq War vote, and so on. They complicate their imagined belief structure over that of a Trump supporter by also deflecting when confronted with facts, and will even attempt logic such as "Well, X did it too." as if that would make it ok or simply discrediting the source of material citing facts.
Hillary supporters support her because she's Hillary.
Most Bernie supporters differ from Hillary supporters in that if it was anyone else instead of Bernie, running that had the history/consistency/honesty/policy positions as Bernie, and was also not corporately funded with a super-PAC, then they would whole-heartedly support that person just like they now support Bernie.
It's unfortunate that Hillary supporters cannot objectively see that.
All that said, back to Trump. There have been recent polls suggesting 33% won't vote for Hillary no matter what. I believe that number after my own transition from being able to pull the lever for her but preferring Bernie to now despising her. I also believe that there is a significant portion of independents that would support Bernie, but will not support Hillary under any circumstance. Whether that is enough to overcome those that will vote for her out of fear of Trump, etc... I cannot say.