Could the Sandernistas hand Donald Trump the White House?

[dax00]

There will be no "handing". Clinton would will not have earned the vote of Sanders supporters.

[dax00]

Why does anyone think it's likelier that Sanders people will split the Democracts than Anti-Trump people will split the Republicans? Hillary is about as conventional Democrat as you can get and Bernie people are almost exclusively people who always vote for Democrats. Trump came and hostilely took over his party leaving dozens of burnt bridges in his wake. I'd think it's still pretty clearly the case that the GOP primary was more divisive and acrimonious all around than the Democratic one; remember when nobody watched the Democratic debates because they were too civil?

The yes argument to the question seems loaded with present bias.

The GOP base is unified. Only the establishment circles were truly split, and those are well in the minority - well represented here on Atlas.

[dax00]

It is not the horseshoe. Ideological spectrum is not unidimensional. Typically, in most countries 2 to 3 dimensions are salient, but even those are kind of "suspended" (mathematical term would be "embedded") in a large-dimensional space of possible policies - and they can rotate in funny ways. For the last few electoral cycles, salient US dimensions remained fairly constant. However, Trump and Sanders, it seems, have managed to change which issues are salient. Once this happened, it turns out, many of the sanderistas literally project in the same spot with the trumpistas - and both are far away from the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Well put. I agree with you.