• Jordan117@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary. In hindsight, he would have been obliterated, McGovern-style. Clinton and Biden treated him with kid gloves, but in a general election all of his questionable past – his unemployment, his wife’s involvement with that college financing thing, his honeymoon in the USSR, the rape essay – would have come out and been hammered relentlessly by Republicans (and a good chunk of Democrats).

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        LOL, nah. Pretending people were too sexist to vote for Hillary and some white male neolib would’ve done better is nothing but a fantasy neolibs tell themselves to try to excuse their corporate bootlicking.

        • jj4211@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Frankly Hilary wasn’t a good candidate, Elizabeth Warren would have been better, to illustrate it wasn’t about her gender, but her specifically.

          Hilary campaign was largely based around:

          I’m a Clinton, remember us from 16 years ago, when my husband was president and I had nothing to do with policy, and mostly remembered as the woman who got cheated on? Clinton was remembered fondly enough I suppose, but that was 16 years ago, and any momentum from that had evaporated. The youngest voters were toddlers when that ended. If they wanted a bit of credibility by affinity to an administration, should have been Obama.

          If you don’t vote for me, you are a terrible person.

          “I’m with her”, which is just a terrible slogan that indicates a backwards relationship between a candidate and electorate. Even the megalomaniac asshole Trump managed to focus on “America” rather than himself with his slogan.

          She didn’t do much to energize anyone, and despite lacking substance she still managed to have folks dislike her candidacy. Whether it be by ditching her home state to go somewhere that would give her a government position or by pissing off the Bernie wing, or, as stupid as it is, I even heard some Democrat mad at her for embarrassing Bill Clinton by “making” him cheat.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            20 hours ago

            True! But also shutting out AOC is itself an example of said corporate bootlicking, so it’s not so much of a “well, and” as it is an “including.”

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Biden squeaked by only because Trump fucked up the pandemic so badly. That does not mean he would’ve won in 2016.

          • boydster@sh.itjust.works
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            2 days ago

            And the conditions in 2016 were markedly different than they were in 2020, unless you don’t believe in the forward progression of time.

            In other news, a tautology is a tautology.

            • randon31415@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Yes, conditions in 2016 were markedly different. Biden was the VP of a highly successful president. Hillary had been demonized by the right for 2 decades and by the left for 1 decade. By the forward progression of time, Biden was weaker in 2024 than he was in 2020. Conversely, he would have been a stronger candidate in 2016.

              Listen, every other “X could have beat Trump” is a hypothetical. Trump has only ever been beaten once, and I don’t want to carry on a factual debate with a Qanon MAGA hat that doesn’t believe in logic, just “feels”, so good night.

              • boydster@sh.itjust.works
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                2 days ago

                Well clearly someone’s emotions have gotten the best of them. Have fun wallowing in your hypotheticals and lashing out at people meaninglessly. After 8 years of Obama, America was not voting for Obama 2 immediately after. That is a crazy take.

                Edit: Obama 2, now more boring and uninspiring!

                I was there. Biden was not the solution then.