Bernie Sanders and His Supporters Didn’t Cost Hillary Clinton Anything.
By: Lauren Elizabeth
Tags: Bernie Sanders, Elections, Election 2020, Government, Politics

Bernie Sanders and His Supporters Didn’t Cost Hillary Clinton Anything.

Debunking the narrative that we’re responsible for the results of the 2016 election once and for all.

Photo via Bernie Sanders on Instagram

There’s no denying that the 2016 election cycle left a number of wounds that the broad coalition of the American left is still trying to mend. It was difficult to watch a man who had campaigned on racism, sexism, xenophobia, faux populism, and lost the popular vote by three million votes win the election, setting course to do irreparable damage to our already fragile democracy. Aside from that, I don’t think there’s a single democratic voter out there who would deny that the primary season was a tense one between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. A primary season that many of us are trying to digest and learn from.

The problem is, the media has constructed an entirely false narrative that’s making it nearly impossible to do so.

After losing an election that the media spent months telling the American Public was almost guaranteed to be handed to her, Hillary Clinton along with her advisors were looking for any excuse they could find to explain their loss. Aside from Russia and James Comey, Bernie Sanders and his supporters have been on the list of top favorite things to blame rather than accepting even a shred of responsibility for a failed electoral strategy.

Even before Hillary officially secured the nomination, everyone lined up in support of her were all too ready to accuse Bernie of being divisive, simply for having the audacity to campaign against her and point out how their records varied. After she lost the election, naturally Bernie and his supporters would be on the long list of what to point to as the cause for her loss.

I have supported Bernie Sanders’ campaign since before he even officially announced leading up to the 2016 election. For years now, we have been told to grit our teeth, bow our heads, and fall in line. For years, they have chastised us and treated us as though we don’t represent a significant portion of the Democratic Party while at the same time demanding that we support whoever the nominee will be this time, since evidently there were so many of us that we cost Democrats the election last time around. The moment we challenge this infuriating narrative, we are smeared as divisive, immature, sexist, too critical, rude, and unwilling to give anyone other than Bernie our support.

The inconvenient truth, however, is that Bernie Sanders and his supporters didn’t cost Hillary Clinton anything.

In the 2016 general election, the most generous estimates to that narrative indicate that twelve percent of Bernie’s supporters voted for Donald Trump as opposed to Clinton. Other estimates have pinned the number down to as low as six percent. Meanwhile, in 2008, what percentage of Hillary Clinton supporters voted for John McCain as opposed to Barack Obama? Twenty four percent. DOUBLE the estimated percentage of Bernie supporters.

Of course, admittedly, it came down to the voters in rust belt states. Many have argued that the percentage of voters that went from Sanders to Trump exceeded Trump’s margin of victory in these states, saying that if they hadn’t done so he would have lost. In saying this, they leave out one important detail.

Many of those voters had never been inclined to affiliate themselves with the Democratic Party before Bernie Sanders in the first place, and were highly unlikely to ever vote for Hillary Clinton. They weren’t votes she would have had, but lost because of him. They were independents disenfranchised with the status quo, attracted to Bernie’s populist economic message. They weren’t purity test driven leftists who just decided stubbornly to vote for Trump because Bernie lost. This has nothing to do with Bernie being divisive, but rather the fact that he had been able to garner an entirely unique coalition of support from people outside of the Democratic Party. Between support of NAFTA, her lack of campaigning in the rust belt, and her unwillingness to even attempt to gain their support, as sad as it was to see it shouldn’t be surprising that they turned away from Ms. Clinton. Bernie didn’t cost her their support. It was support she never had to begin with, and never wanted.

I am in no way trying to excuse that disastrous vote, merely trying to explain it. To generalize such a huge, broad coalition of people based on such a slim percentage who were never democratically affiliated to begin with is not a winning strategy for anyone trying to supposedly unite the Democratic Party. Rather, we should see it as a lesson about the more broad coalition of people democrats can attract when they run populist, voter funded campaigns.

As for Bernie not doing his part to get Hillary Clinton elected, that’s perhaps the most frustrating lie of all. To say that he didn’t support her enough once she secured the nomination could not be further from the truth. Not only did he endorse her, he campaigned for her thirty nine times all over the country. Thirty nine times. How many times did Hillary campaign for Barack Obama? I’ve heard four.

In all seriousness, what more was Bernie supposed to do?

Frankly, they would not have been happy unless he had just refrained from running in the first place.

But with 2016 behind us, we should of course look ahead to the future. What percentage of Democratic candidates’ supporters who would back Trump against one of the others if their preferred choice didn’t secure the nomination?

According to Emerson polling, a mere four percent of Bernie’s supporters would do so. Meanwhile, twelve percent of Buttigieg’s would, ten percent of Warren’s, and nine percent of Biden’s supporters would back Trump against the other democratic candidates in a general election.

But it’s Bernie’s supporters that are the problem? It’s Bernie’s supporters that need to be reminded about unity?

I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee happens to be, as much as it might pain me to do so. But I’m sure many of my fellow Bernie supporters are also sick and tired of being told to sit down, shut up, and be quiet every time we happen to point out the differences in record. I’m sick and tired of being told to fall in line. We are in the middle of a primary, and I care deeply about the results of this upcoming election. Naturally, I’m going to do my best to point out my concerns with other candidates so that others can be aware of them too. The end goal should be to elect the best democrat for the job, and that’s what I hope to do. Do not alienate Bernie’s supporters by treating us like irresponsible children if you really care about democratic unity.