Why Sanders could--or couldn't--have won

[thesquanderer]

5. I think that quote has nothing to do with your point.

What you quoted, in bold:

And if Sanders’ rhetoric during the primaries started that stew simmering with his talk about the system only working for the rich

but then you follow that with your point:

Sanders' bogus rigged process claim hurt a great deal.

What is being discussed in the quote is the country's entire political/economic system being rigged in favor of the wealthy. And there is a conversation to be had about that. First, whether or not you believe it's true (the author of the article believe it is not; many people on this board believe that it is). And second, if you believe it's true, is it helpful to talk about it in a primary campaign. Since Hillary got the nomination and lost the election, you might argue that it wasn't, but these were not foregone conclusions.

And if you think this is an important issue, if you don't talk about it during the primaries, when are you supposed to address it? Yes, Trump may have taken advantage of having seen how that talk resonated. But (a) that doesn't mean it wasn't an important issue to address, and (b) there's no way to even have a reasonable primary process if every candidate must avoid saying anything that can possibly be used by the other side if they don't win the nomination themselves. That would require ending all disagreement among the candidates before anyone is selected, and how can you have a primary process under those conditions?

But your end quote is really about something entirely different... you're talking about whether the primary process had been rigged against him, which is a very different conversation than what was being discussed in that HuffPo article and quote. There is some evidence that the DNC did have their hand on the scale, but I understand that there are many people here who view that differently. But compared to the former point, that assertion was a much smaller element of Sanders' campaign. As you might guess, I don't see it as bogus, but we can differ there. Either way, though, I don't think that is something that played a significant factor in Trump's appeal.