Will Bernie Sanders Supporters Elect Trump Again in 2020?

For the record, I am not a Bernie Sanders fan and frankly do not view him as electable. (And, yes, I still hold a grudge for Sanders' attempts to meddle in the 2017 Virginia election, which fortunately failed).   More over, he proved himself to be an opportunist in the 2016 contest and had no allegiance to the Democrat party. He ran as a Democrat simply to further his own interests and, not surprisingly, many in the party saw through this opportunism.  One commentator on a friend's blog summed up the feeling well:

[O]ne candidate was a Democrat, the other an independent running as a Democrat to take advantage of the existing organizations. As soon as the primary was over the disgruntled new ‘Democrat’ went back to being an independent. Surprise, surprise.

Sanders could have remained a Democrat post-2016, but instead immediately left the party, thus underscoring his deep seated self-centered opportunism.  In my view, he should not even be allowed to run as a Democrat in the 2020 contest.

The other issue I have with Sanders is that a certain element of his base strike me as akin to cult followers - much in the way some of Trump's supporters are cultists rather than normal Republicans of yesteryear. In 2016, the Sanders supporters who stayed home or exercised a protest by voting for a third party candidate with no chance in Hell of winning basically put Donald Trump in office.  The national nightmare we are experiencing is the result of the peevishness of this Bernie or no one crowd which ignored the number one principal of politics: electing candidates who will implement the policies most like those you support.  This doesn't mean you will necessarily get your perceived perfect candidate, but that you support the one of the available alternatives is closer on your issues. Now, with 2020 approaching, many are fearful that the Sanders cultist will had the White House back to Trump if Sanders isn't the Democrat nominee.  An article looks at this justified fear based on the 2016 experience.  Here are excerpts:

It was hard to miss Cheri Pichone’s excitement about Bernie Sanders’ second presidential run. She showed up to a recent Iowa rally decked out in Sanders gear, complete with a figurine of the Vermont senator and progressive icon.

But underneath her exuberance, the 36-year-old was still mad about the last Democratic primary, when Sanders’ bid for the presidency fell short to Hillary Clinton. “They cheated,” she said, directing much of her anger at the Democratic National Committee. The party establishment, she lamented, was “actively working against us.”

Pichone voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016 and said she may vote for a third party again if Sanders doesn’t clinch the nomination.  She’s emblematic of a persistent group of Sanders supporters who won’t let go of the slights — real and perceived — from the last campaign.

Some establishment-aligned Democrats worry the party could lose in 2020 if lingering concerns about the last primary aren’t put to bed.  “It has the potential to escalate, and it has the potential to help re-elect Donald Trump,” said Mo Elleithee, a former spokesman for Clinton and the DNC.

According to data from the Pew Research Center, the tension took a toll. About 81% of people who consistently supported Sanders during the primary season and were confirmed to have voted in the general election said they ultimately voted for Clinton, while 11% said they supported Stein or Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, and 3% supported Trump.  In a closely contested election, those moves away from Clinton may have factored into the results.

Since the election, party leaders have sought to smooth things over with Sanders and his supporters. DNC Chairman Tom Perez is planning a robust debate schedule. The rules governing superdelegates — party insiders who overwhelmingly backed Clinton — have changed.

[T]he [Sanders] campaign has made some moves that raise questions about whether resentments from 2016 will linger. Briahna Joy Gray, formerly a liberal journalist who voted for Stein, is Sanders’ national press secretary. Nina Turner, who called the DNC “dictatorial and pompous” in 2017, is one of his national campaign chairs.

And some of Sanders’ most loyal supporters in the crucial early voting states say they’re not ready to fully move on.

“If they steal it from him again, I’ll go independent or something other than that,” he said. “The Democratic Party’s on their last edge of me if they kind of try to screw him again.”

Even in South Carolina, where Sanders lost momentum after a 47-point drubbing from Clinton, some supporters are still smarting over a process they believe was rigged.

"Lost might be a stretch,” said Tom Amon, of Summerville, when asked how he felt about Sanders’ ability to perform better in South Carolina than he did in the 2016 primary. “It was stolen from him.”

Trump must be grinning widely.  If the Sanders cultist re-elect Trump in 2020, they will truly prove that they care nothing for the country or the policies they claim to support.