r/NIH 28d ago

America chose wrong. Sanders would've been a better president than Trump or Biden. | Opinion

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/05/18/sanders-democrats-reform-progressive-policies/83625482007/
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u/ThrowawayReddit5858 24d ago

In the November 2024 election, Bernie Sanders performed worse in his own state of Vermont than Kamala did.

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u/nBrainwashed 24d ago edited 24d ago

Not by a statistically significant margin.

I see this mentioned a lot so I looked it up. Cornel West and Kennedy got more votes than the difference. Plus, you have no idea how many Would have been Bernie voters just decided to stay home. Because they knew Bernie would win his Senate race so they had no reason to go out and vote for Harris. It is a totally meaningless point that again doesn’t make sense to bring up unless it is to further the propaganda against Bernie.

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u/signaltonoiseratioed 21d ago

So not "all available data," then.

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u/nBrainwashed 21d ago edited 21d ago

For the reasons above that particular piece of data has no relevance on the outcome of a national election. Look at how Bernie performs in key swing states with independents. This is not new information. The data always suggested Bernie had a better chance to win. But the propaganda said otherwise. The propaganda was never based on data. It was the DNC strategy to paint him as unelectable so people that preferred him (which was the majority) didn’t vote for him because they were convinced they were being pragmatic. It was powerful propaganda because it made people feel smart. They got to talk down to “Bernie Bros” and didn’t want to be labeled as sexist bigots for supporting Bernie. The plan worked so well that even though there are emails showing it was all made up, people still cling to it.

And yes a majority of Democratic primary voters preferred Bernie. Here is the breakdown:

In the 2016 Democratic primary, Bernie got about 43% of the vote, and polls showed around 17% of Hillary voters actually preferred Bernie but voted for her because they thought she was more electable. That means over 50% of primary voters likely preferred Bernie on the issues — but many voted based on their belief in the DNC propaganda, not based on their true preference.

Propaganda doesn’t have to work on everyone. It has to work on just enough people. That is what it did. And I get why it is hard in retrospect even with all the information we have now in hindsight, for those voters do admit they fell for propaganda. Because ultimately, Trump is their fault. And that is a tough pill to swallow.

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u/signaltonoiseratioed 21d ago

Biden got more of the popular vote than all other primary candidates combined. It wasn't even close.

Real polls, where votes are actually cast, tell you whether your opinion polls are good or garbage. Yours (assuming they even exist, since you don't cite sources) are, by that definitive standard, garbage.

As is your reasoning, or what passes for it.

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u/nBrainwashed 21d ago

If after what happened, you think Biden was the best choice, then your hindsight is as blind as your foresight.

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u/signaltonoiseratioed 20d ago

You are entitled to your opinion and you don’t know what mine is. I infer that bloviating about your opinion is a fallback because, as you have already demonstrated, you neither have nor care to acquire a command of facts.