• Jordan117@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      I voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary. In hindsight, he would have been obliterated, McGovern-style. Clinton and Biden treated him with kid gloves, but in a general election all of his questionable past – his unemployment, his wife’s involvement with that college financing thing, his honeymoon in the USSR, the rape essay – would have come out and been hammered relentlessly by Republicans (and a good chunk of Democrats).

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        LOL, nah. Pretending people were too sexist to vote for Hillary and some white male neolib would’ve done better is nothing but a fantasy neolibs tell themselves to try to excuse their corporate bootlicking.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            True! But also shutting out AOC is itself an example of said corporate bootlicking, so it’s not so much of a “well, and” as it is an “including.”

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Biden squeaked by only because Trump fucked up the pandemic so badly. That does not mean he would’ve won in 2016.

          • boydster@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            And the conditions in 2016 were markedly different than they were in 2020, unless you don’t believe in the forward progression of time.

            In other news, a tautology is a tautology.

            • randon31415@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Yes, conditions in 2016 were markedly different. Biden was the VP of a highly successful president. Hillary had been demonized by the right for 2 decades and by the left for 1 decade. By the forward progression of time, Biden was weaker in 2024 than he was in 2020. Conversely, he would have been a stronger candidate in 2016.

              Listen, every other “X could have beat Trump” is a hypothetical. Trump has only ever been beaten once, and I don’t want to carry on a factual debate with a Qanon MAGA hat that doesn’t believe in logic, just “feels”, so good night.

              • boydster@sh.itjust.works
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                1 day ago

                Well clearly someone’s emotions have gotten the best of them. Have fun wallowing in your hypotheticals and lashing out at people meaninglessly. After 8 years of Obama, America was not voting for Obama 2 immediately after. That is a crazy take.

                Edit: Obama 2, now more boring and uninspiring!

                I was there. Biden was not the solution then.