So many blame or give credit to Trump for winning the election.
I think the real fault lies with DNC. Why were they so hell bent on having Clinton picked when Sanders excited so many young Democrats and did better in earlier polls?
Sanders vs. Trump would have seen Sanders lose by a larger margin. "Young democrats" is a tiny demographic that can't swing an election, openly embracing the "socialist" label would have "excited" a lot of people all right - to vote against him.
Please. Sanders would have played Trump in the debates like a fiddle. Trump can shout "he's a socialist!" over and over again all he want, but he wouldn't have any of his ammunition like he did against Clinton - the emails, the speeches, etc.
Sanders is old. Old people have skeletons in the closet. Sanders wasn't a big deal long enough for the press to have really dug in and started dragging those old skeletons out.
Sanders had a similar message as Trump, just a bit different flavor. That resonated with the voters. I think Sanders would have grabbed more electoral college votes but to win, no idea. Hindsight and all that
Trump and Hillary had historically high unfavourable ratings, and Bernie is quite popular. The socialist label was worn out somewhat on Obama, so it doesn't carry the same sting. He doesn't have anywhere near the baggage that Hillary does, and had policies to address some of the white working class concerns of the rust belt, and shared some of Trump's skepticism about free trade offshoring jobs. He would've gotten all of the "anyone but Trump" votes (as Hillary did), plus he had a bloc of genuinely excited voters who enthusiastically supported him till the end, potentially meaning greater turnout. Not saying he would definitely win, but in head to head polling he did better vs Trump than Hillary did.
He might have. In pre-nomination polling, Sanders did significantly better than Clinton against Trump. He'd also have gotten his share of anti-establishment voters and arguably would have brought to the table far less baggage.
"Because he can't win". He was the Democratic equivalent of Trump in that he wanted to do something radically different, but the party had their collective stuff way more together than the red team and thus wasn't so easily disrupted. They went with Hillary and figured it'd be business as usual.
Perhaps because, aside from when he was running for the nomination, Sanders isn't a Democrat! He's an Independent who tried to take control of the party (the nominee becomes the head of the party after all) - why would party insiders have any loyalty to him over Clinton?
I think the real fault lies with DNC. Why were they so hell bent on having Clinton picked when Sanders excited so many young Democrats and did better in earlier polls?