2016 Postmortem

But in 2012, he was no longer the "change" candidate because he had become the status quo. He still won handily.

People who voted for Obama in 2012 weren't voting for change. The were, quite literally, voting for more of the same.

2016 wasn't guaranteed to be a "change" election by any means. Obama was popular, and economic numbers were turning up.

I agree that crapping over parts of the Democratic coalition is a bad idea. I am reminded of that every time I read a post about "corporate Dems" and "neoliberals" and how we need to purge the DNC, and all that. The flip side is, this is an online discussion forum, the people participating are expressing opinions, but they aren't public figures.

The problem with Bernie's campaign is that he was a public figure, and drew a large following. And he managed to convince a lot of low information lefties that the problem was the "establishment" rather than the GOP. In so doing, he was falsely attacking not only Hillary, who would go on to be the nominee, but also a popular sitting Democratic president who has accomplished more for progressive causes than anyone else in 50 years.

And, yeah, in an election year when the Dems held the White House, for Bernie to crap all over the leadership of the Democratic Party with insults was a bad thing to do.