I did read your sources though! But your sources are based on the same false equivalencies you're getting so mad at people not buying into. With all due respect, I don't think they accurately can say anything we have to take at face value in this election cycle. At least that escapes me.
You cannot for certain predict the future based on the past. The washington post article is just speculative at best. It highlights that it is just a possibility (one of many) that Sanders would have tanked. Re-read it (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blog...n-its-a-fair-question/?utm_term=.54e2ce697cc3 ).
Your second link was an opinion poll from end of 2011;
http://www.people-press.org/2011/12...ponse-to-capitalism-socialism/?src=prc-number
And your third link is a study into 2004s Kerry-Bush election. One which is not very applicable today;
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/AOAS150.pdf
Jonm, instead of getting angry at me or accusing so many with a hostile tone, I'll just say this; historic events as a baseline of what will happen has to be vetted for changes in the future. I'd be like someone saying that Hillary cannot be president because there has never been a woman president.
Now, nobody in this thread, not me, or anyone else has ever claimed or sighted that there would not be those that who would respond negatively to Sanders socialist stick. What I said in my first post (if you read it) is just that I am tired of this being used as a boogeyman. Written and worded like a sure thing. Sanders comments would have killed him in the election once Fox started running it.
Even if that was true in 2004, or even in 2011, doesn't necessarily mean anything in 2016. At the precipice of a historical election that has defied all expectations.
There is no proof or source, or poll that can be provided or prove or refute this point, because it's a hypothetical. Sanders is not the nominee, and opinion polls are not a good gauge or indicator at the earlier stages to predict the outcome. It also ignore the PR machine that would have been built around Sanders as he traversed further into his campaign and got to explain the differences between his band of socialism and the misconceptions.
I just think it's to lazy to say it's a sure thing. I think you and me are on the same page that it would of course still have created problems. Just like it has created problems for Hillary being a woman. But in her case it is also difficult to accurately get a sense of how much of it is sexism. Or rather it's impossible given the nature of human beings versus the countless related and unrelated motivations one might have!
I feel it's impossible to really get an honest assessment of. Particularly because people tend to not even be truthful when being conducted into polls and interviews about their political leanings. People think like to think about themselves differently than they actually feel. Which means you get a skewed outlook. I don't have any english sources, but it's a phenomenon that has happened in a long time in many different contexts where there is a cognitive dissonance between how you want to be perceived and you feel. The bradley effect sounds a bit like it, but not quite;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect < This model focuses on politics, but it's the sort of thing that can take any number of forms.
