Apparently the GOP had a lot of "dirt" on Sanders prepared

You can make him look bad by only showing people a single line without context.

Yeah no, I'm pretty sure you can't compare this 1-page essay that can easily be understood by reading it to the Clinton email scandal.

Fucking liberals.

The rape-y essay was also used by the Clinton team, and Sanders spoke about it on a talk show, I don't remember which one. I don't remember it affecting his numbers. And it doesn't really seem like a problem once you realise he was running against Trump, and once you realise that Bill is literally a rapist.

The "environmental racist" one is terrible, and far more likely to come from a Dem than a Republican. I mean, would Trump really go from "deport hispanics" to "this Sanders guy doesn't like hispanics!", let alone based on such a weak line?

The crime bill one also sucks. Clinton and Trump both went around criticizing the Iraq war despite the fact that they both supported it. No one gives a shit about these things as long as you pretend you regret it. And the GOP also didn't bring up the bill against Clinton, so they acknowledged it wasn't the best thing.

Clinton also tried to pin Cuba against him and I think absolutely no one gave a fuck because cold warriors are all going to vote right-wing anyway. Same shit goes for Nicaragua, no american can even find it on the map.

>before anyone really attacked him

Literally these were all garbage. The reason Clinton didn't really attack him is because there's virtually nothing to attack him based on. Once you go past "he's a Socialist" you're left with retarded shit like "his finger-waving is sexist", as the Clinton team learned.

On a presidential campaign, half of these lines could easily be turned against Republicans. They don't have the political capital to criticize someone for negatively affecting hispanics or whatever. And remember that most people didn't want to vote for Trump, the reason they voted was because of Clinton's corruption, her numbers went down after the e-mails.

The best attack line conservatives had was his Socialism, which is now increasingly becoming a popular idea. The best thing liberals had was the fact he was a white man, which evidently no one cares about. And the best thing the radical Left of the "dude fucking REFORMIST" variety had was the extradiction of Assata Shakur.

Repeat after me: Sanders would have won

Indeed. Actually the Clinton email scandal fucking killed her more than any other thing this election. It didn't just "require a complicated explanation", if that was the case, it could have easily been brushed off. It cemented her image with the people as a criminal, basically. A liar who perceives themselves as too integral to the system to be held to the same standards as the rest of the people.

The issue is not that the actual content of the emails or even the specifics of the investigation.

Bernie would have beaten Trump. He would have taken all of those rust belt voters that won the election for Trump out from under him. There's no doubt about it.

Sander's didn't need to pass a purity test tbh so things like the crime bill falls flat. Once he got into the hot seat half the country would have instantly papered over these when they switched to the "it's a two party system!" mindset and far fewer people would have rebutted "Bernie is just as bad!" w/r/t anything Trump did like they could with Hilldawg.

It's really pathetic that the Clinton camp is coming back with the exact same arguments they used against Bernie during the primaries to defend their choice, even in the face of their incredible, unforgivable failure. These are literally the same arguments, with the same capstone "nobody has attacked him on these points, that's why he's so popular, as soon as they do he'll definitely lose". Not a single change. No self-reflection.

I don't care what Bernie has done or whether or not he is a liar or hypocrite. I will support any candidate who says he supports socialist ideals.

This. The guy who wrote this article is pretty much pretending that Clinton didn't use most of these against Sanders, because he can't accept that they didn't work. Liberals don't learn with their mistakes.

Yeah, I bet all of these attacks on the Sandman will work just like how John Oliver "destroyed" Donald Trump, right?

since when is trying to make nuclear energy more cost effective a bad thing?

So then why did you support Bernie?

psychologytoday.com/blog/all-about-sex/201001/womens-rape-fantasies-how-common-what-do-they-mean

Except for the crime bill part and the nuclear waste thing all of those are garbage that nobody cares about, and both those things are stuff the republicans wouldn't attack him with. If Trump could win with charges of rape hanging over his head, I don't think anybody would have cared about him stealing electricity from his neighbor, come on.

BTW the crime bill bit, he was actually confronted about it during the primaries and said that at the time he only supported it because of its provisions against domestic abuse, but he criticized everything else about it since before it was voted into law. And there are recordings of him talking against it, so he's not just bullshitting.

Chances of Clinton beating Trump: 0%
Chances of Sanders beating Trump: 0-100%

How can they possibly argue with that? There's no doubt that Clinton was the wrong choice, so Sanders unquestionably wins by default.

I actually don't think any of this would have costed Bernie the election. It would have become closer, but he could have still won.

Fundamentally, in elections, ideology is not the most important factor in someone's vote. It just isn't. The first thing is party identification–Trump was a complete runway from traditional establishment conservatism, but he still won 90% of Republican votes. So Democrats would still rally around Bernie regardless.

Second, none of these things are particularly damning. Hispanics in Florida are not all Cuban–and wouldn't give Trump a huge edge there. His essay might be weird, but it's so old, and young women voted for him over Clinton in the primaries. The Sandinista thing is probably the worst. But candidacy ruining? I really doubt it.

Sanders appealed to white working class voters and that's key–he would have been a lot more competitive than Clinton in the rust belt.

All of this "dirt" is just the establishment trying to de-legitimize that Bernie would have won.

But Clinton did beat Trump.