j reacts to sanders supporters preferring satan to trump (but what of stein?)

nobody has ever seriously suggested that sanders supporters will vote for trump - although i do think he had a chance had he stuck to trade and toned down the nonsense. it's still probably his best tactic, but it's the best of a bad bunch. it may be true that most people realize that he's not going to build a wall or ban muslims. but, the thing is that it also follows that he's not going to pull out of nafta, either. he just has absolutely no credibility at all. what he says is absolutely meaningless. so, if the problem with clinton is that you think she's a liar that's only in it for herself and that you can't believe a word she says, trump is not a solution. to a sanders supporter, they really come off more or less as interchangeable. so, the reverse of that is that trump doesn't seem so scary, either - he just seems like a non-solution.

the question is how many of those sanders supporters will ultimately move to stein as clinton reverses the minor concessions she's made in the general, not how many will move to trump.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/10/sanders-supporters-prefer-clinton-to-trump-exclusive-poll

something else, though.

"Analysis of the detailed poll findings also suggests Sanders voters could help Clinton recapture support from young people, union members and voters in the midwest and north-east."

ok. that's true - you didn't need a poll for it. but, why would they want to?

can you give me one reason that a sanders voter should vote for clinton? "trump eats children" is a good plot for a cartoon show, but not actually a very good argument.

now, i want to be clear: i'm not suggesting that you're going to see a poll with the greens competitive any time soon.

i think the libertarian thing, from sanders voters, is probably a kneejerk. it may be reflective of ignorance, or identity politics, or a bit of both. 15% seems like a lot, but 15% of 18% is less than 3%. we do live in a patriarchal society. it may be clueless and ignorant to label bernie supporters as 'bros', or suggest that her gender is what's pushing opposition to her (hey! hey! hillary! how many kids did you kill today?), but one would nonetheless expect some level of gender-based reactionary rejectionism. 3% seems like the right number. the sanders--->johnston swing may be a good metric to gauge how much it is that sexism is actually a problem. why else would you vote for gary johnson, after supporting a candidate that wants single-payer healthcare and state-funded tuition? you'd have to be entirely clueless or hopelessly sexist. i'm pretty critical of identity politics, but it has a use and this is it.

the real fight is between clinton and stein. it might not present itself for a while. it might take until october, even. but, this is where bernie supporters' heads are at, and the choice they're going to be making.

the media will not cover this until it is forced to.

if she can get some traction to start with, though, don't be surprised if she gains support very quickly.

what we've learned with sanders is that americans are inherently conservative in their voting choices. they have to know their candidates. that's stein's biggest challenge.

and i would encourage sanders supporters to facilitate this, rather than get in line behind another war criminal.

if you can't make sense of what you're seeing in front of you with logic and policy-based analysis, then you need to look at other explanations - and identity politics are as valid as any other, to specifically explain how small numbers of voters react in irrational ways. it's when people start using identity politics as a dominant tool of analysis, or suggest that identity > ideology, that i'm going to push back and call "bullshit". this is a bankers' wet dream. some kind of vulgar gramscian brainwashing through advertising. it's divide and conquer. so, of course it gets pushed down. but, it's almost always very easily deconstructed as nonsense (and i've done that on this page).

what the system wants is to be able to manchurian candidate you by your identity - to push a few buttons and get every gay eskimo with a pet squirrel to behave the same way. they want to destroy your individuality in favour of a constructed identity that they can download into your brain from head office. the tools are still pretty crude - advertising, tv, movies, mainstream music, just media in general - but they're developing. and, they've managed to capture a large swath of the left.

again: it's usually deconstructed, and usually into class, with little effort. but, it's not some accident that the media goes out of it's way to obscure things and break you down into these atomized advertising demographics. they hope it's self-fulfilling. but, leave it to the misanthropic cynic to have more faith in human individuality than that.

so, yes - there are going to be people that will not vote for clinton because she's female. there will also be people that will vote for clinton because she's female. but, you need to measure this at around 2-3% of the total voting population, not 40% of all voters in the primary. and, you'll likely see it more or less balance out.