Jonathan Pie explains it

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

On the other hand, how many were ever PERSUADED by debate, either? Very few people on either side have any ability to be persuaded at all. This most definitely is the left's fault, but only in that the party leaders ignored the obvious trends in the electorate and chose Hillary over Bernie. I live in red country and I'm here to tell you, no one has a monopoly on calling the other side names.

This.

I don't think Clinton is anywhere near the nightmare she has been portrayed as - the idea that she is the epitome of corruption and deception just doesn't hold water, there are and have been far worse politicians in the US system than Hilary. But what she absolutely is, is establishment. And within the democratic party, the Clinton wing does not offer enough of a different analysis from mainstream republicanism to win over those disillusioned with global capitalism and neo-conservatism.

For years, the right of the democratic party has stomped all over the left on the basis that they are more electable. Socialism maybe a dirty word in America, but in truth it has been applied wholesale to a branch of the party that is far from socialist. The dominant wing of the democrats simple don't offer an alternative and have conspired with the rest of the mainstream political class to demonise anything less than neo-con attitudes as a way of distancing themselves from their 'unelectable' left wing.

Bernie Sanders offered a genuine political alternative, with a genuinely alternative analysis.

I am not saying he would have won - there's truly no way to know - but it would have been a true contest between differing ideologies and political solutions, and there's a whole bunch of people disillusioned enough with the status quo that they might have been willing to listen to that alternative.

This election was not a battle between left and right. It was a battle between a representative of an entrenched political elite and an outsider.