General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do you want Bernie supporters to vote for Democrats in November? [View all]karynnj
(59,475 posts)but have no estimate of the numbers of people planning to vote for HRC, who moved to Trump or not voting because of the lies spread on social media. I doubt many people already for HRC believed any of those stories, while many on the far right have always believed everything bad ever said of her. (I have never seen a study on this, but I did see an analysis in 2004, that few people, who ever would have voted for Kerry believed the SBVT lies. They were given more respect by the mainstream media than pizzagate and the other Russian based lies.
As to the Bernie Bros, I have posted often that Bernie's support in the primary included both some traditional Democrats AND some libertarian/non political people who usually do not vote. Most of his supporters were Democrats who voted for Clinton in the general. The 10% who went from Bernie to Trump were the latter group. Even before the NH primary they were undecided between Bernie and Trump. To me and other here, that seemed very weird, but since then it has been described as wanting an outsider, a populist and change.
As to why I mentioned 2008, it was to point out that ALL opponents attack where they are different than the other and they think it advantages them. Note, this is not limited to 2008 - I can give examples of 2004 (flip/flop by Dean, a generic attack on a Senator by a Governor), 2000(too close to Clinton by Bradley), 1992(draft dodging - Kerrey about Clinton), 1988 (Willie Horton by Al Gore) ... I could go earlier, but that makes the point.
My point is that what Russia did was an attack. If Trump colluded, it is a very serious crime. However, it is wrong to blame Sanders because things he said were reused by the Republicans. That happens every election, because both the primary opponent and the general election opponent look to see what the weaknesses of their opponent are.
The things Sanders attacked - her speeches were going to be a Republican attack - especially after she changed her TPP position and the leaked tapes showed her 2013/2014 position. Nothing Sanders spoke of was secret or even hidden. The main attack by Trump was essentially that she was the status quo -- and he would change everything.
I am NOT ignoring what Russia did. You, in fact, are adding a condition that I don't -- that Mueller needs to prove it changed the election. I worked for over 2 decades doing statistical analysis and know that it would be extremely difficult and maybe not possible to design a study to prove conclusively that the Russian social media lies changed the outcome. (I have the same opinion on the 2004 use of Ohio Republicans of too few voting machines to suppress the vote in inner cities. I actually think that easier by asking people retroactively if they gave up rather than wait 4 plus hours in line when they had child and work responsibilities, but that would not be accepted as sound science.)