for Obama in the 2008 General election, than Sanders supporters failed to vote for Hillary in the General election in 2016.
Luckily, in 2008, the number of Hillary supporters who failed to 'come home' for the General election was vastly overwhelmed by the massive increase in turnout of African-Americans voters for Obama--- which caused my longest wait to vote EVER, in November 2008, about an hour and a half!!! (The line was stretching out of the building... before and after, I had always finished within 30 minutes and probably 20.)
Fearing an 'only natural' fall-off of A.A. turnout in 2016, without the historic first-time African-American nominee at the top of the ballot, I advocated for an African-American vice presidential nominee to be chosen--- but instead, Sec. Clinton chose someone who was considered a *safe* (WHITE--- AND BORING!!!) choice-- and then even failed to campaign much or at all in the African-American urban strongholds in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin--- instead reaching for victories in red states which she could not win... (President Biden made a different and bolder choice, and the results speak for themselves.)
Going back to your original point--- yes, there were 'many' Sanders supporters who voted for Trump--- I classify them as the 'older angry white man'--- but Bernie Sanders had a large percentage of independent voters supporting him in his race for the Democratic nomination that year (also "documented" )--- thus, the Democratic party was not *entitled* to their votes in the General election---
even if ideologically it would have made more sense for those independent Sanders voters to support the Democratic nominee in the GE, I think that most of those were 'non-ideological' indy voters--- they were instead 'emotional voters', and they were angry, and after Sanders was defeated, they chose to support 'the angry candidate' left to them in the General election, which was Trump.....
but the vast majority of those voters had never been committed to the Democratic party, even though they had voted in some Democratic primaries....
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