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I mean make fun of the older white educated voter all you want but they vote with their wallets a lot of time. Meaning tax cuts ring in their ears because they are usually on fixed income. High fixed income but still fixed nonetheless. Are there other circumstances like closet racism that plays with it too sure. But don’t discount how big taxes are on decision making.
And the Democratic Party didn’t help that they put hiliary as their candidate, a polarizing figure. I blame the Democratic Party for trump because they shoved hiliary down our throats when they knew so many people didn’t just dislike her but hated her. You can’t do that when a state might be decided by 10k swing voters who voted on that topic alone.
If Bernie had been the nominee, he would have had the same forces unleashed on him that made Hillary Clinton so polarizing and disliked by conservatives. If Bernie Sanders had been the nominee in 2016, the racism of the conservative base, the noise of the conservative media, the donor money and the fake scandal mill in the Congress would have worked to delegitimize Sanders. In no time, the median conservative voter would dislike Sanders just as much as they dislike Clinton.
Bernie only has high favorables with lots of white voters because he was running against Clinton in 2016. If Bernie had been the nominee, he'd have been receiving the support of roughly the same voting blocs that put Barack Obama into office. By election day, Sanders would be seen, by conservatives, the same way that Clinton was. He'd be seen as "soft on crime", "pro welfare" and opposed the interests of "real Americans." In other words, he'd be seen as aiding black criminality, aiding black indolence and opposing the durability of white super majorities, respectively.
Now I think that Bernie and his brand of politics can mobilize non voters and that maybe would have let him do better in those upper Midwestern States but it's hard to see Sanders doing much differently among white voters, who have already voted in several elections. The Democratic Party needs to change but one thing it should not do is change its leaders in hopes that their new leaders will change the minds of conservative voters.