2016 Postmortem

What he did hurt the Democratic Party itself:

what he did was a failure of strategy on his part and it threatened the advancement of the progressive agenda. I've already said we can critique Clinton but you're skirting around dealing with Bernie :

As I've said elsewhere:

If Bernie really wanted to sway Democrats he needed to pay his dues and show loyalty to the party - any organization would demand this including the libertarians and green party.

He needed to join the Dems in 2012, work on making his case among the rank and file Dems. You don't shove your ideas on a party the year before a general election. He needed to ally himself with other democratic coalitions. Put a laser focus on recapturing the house, and hone a group of 30 progressives to capture districts held by moderate Republicans or even take the risk and aim for more right leaning districts ( The Dems needed to do this anyway). He also needed to out-manoeuvre his critics by showing he's serious through sound policy proposals - which would require he make more refined and detailed arguments instead of going on and on about "The billionaire class" The best way to shut down your critics is show you understand their views and predicaments better than they even do, and counter their claims.

But Bernie did none of this. He decided he and his cause were more important than the party - this is just a failure of politics on his part. His establishment arguments were slogans, his economic arguments and analogies made no sense and didn't add up for democrats like myself - and I'm a millennial - I want detail from politicians. And after the dust was settled, Trump had a smorgasbord of criticisms to aim at HRC and the Dems, courtesy Sanders himself.

Basically the left cannibalized itself this year: Moral of the story: Do not tear down your allies.