General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Poll: 57% of Dem. voters want candidates "more like Bernie Sanders" [View all]VOX
(22,976 posts)-Could he have outspent the Republican machine, with far-right-billionaire nutcases like the Mercers, the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson, et al? And sadly, until Citizen's United gets undone, money is THE entire game now. Like it or not, for now, a shit-ton of $$$$$ is needed to win an election.
-Could he have survived the soul-destroying, disinformation garbage that Fox, etc. pumps out at heroic volumes all day, every day, like torture?
-Could he have withstood the attack by a hostile Russia to undermine our democratic institutions, including the election itself?
-Could he have won the Southern states and the Midwest, where "socialism" is synonymous with "Satan"? (And explaining "democratic socialism" to the yahoos is a lost cause, when Rush and Beck and Hannity are bashing it 24/7.)
-How would Bernie have offset the "reality TV celebrity" shit, and the endless hours of coverage the networks just handed (for ratings) to Trump's fascist rallies?
-On edit, am adding Bernie's sputtering out in the primaries, even if that elicits the reflexive "Debbie Wasserman-Schultz" response. (Note that even mainstream Democrats weren't happy with her, either.)
Plainly put, there was no way in hell that Bernie could have come out on top in the absolute shit-fest that was the 2016 campaign and election.