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As much of a Berniebro that I was, I’ve come to realize that the Democratic party is horrifically balkanized. There’s this expectation that the progressive wing of the party is supposed to hold its nose every year and vote for the neoliberal candidate. The problem is that this is not a two way street. Your hardliner party supporters that wanted a Clinton presidency wouldn’t have voted for Bernie. I knew some of them in real life. The DNC actively and aggressively poisoned that particular well early on. Bernie wasn’t a “potential candidate” - he was an enemy of Clinton. Plain and simple. They all said that if Bernie had gotten the nomination, they would have stayed home on election day.
Sure, and they still managed to pass the alien and sedition acts. Saying they weren’t a monolith is a way of dismissing the mountain of evidence that suggests that, for most of them, participation in the democratic process of an inchoate American republic was intended only for a small segment of the population - literate (i.e. wealthy) white men. I’d suggest A People’s History of the United States if you want a better perspective on that.