I think Sanders would have unified because my MAGA parents liked his working-class support. But if I mention that among my progressive friends I get glares and stern warnings that Hillary was "the best" candidate and any objection is sexist. It's kinda like being a conservative who doesn't believe in god or is gay, your party will shun you.

I know anecdote vs anecdote is pretty much meaningless and I’m channeling “No true Scotsman”, but I find it hard to believe an actual progressive telling you that - the complaints from the progressive wing about Sanders losing the primaries are evergreen.

> but I find it hard to believe an actual progressive telling you that

Only on HackerNews would someone try to tell me I was never called a sexist for not liking HRC on her merits. You're only supposed to gaslite women, dude, not other guys. LOL. /s

> I think Sanders would have unified

No, Sanders would never be a unifying figure. Libertarians see him as being essentially equivalent to Trump: a demagogue who makes emotional appeals to build a cult of personality, deeply misunderstands economics, and seeks to use political power in an unbounded and illegitimate ways.

But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.

They are noise in the data.

Populism is a marketing tool (to quote Hank Green) and Sanders wielded it as well as trump, but to help people, not punish them. Both have decades of track records demonstrating this fact.

> But there as many libertarians that matter as there are antifa that matter.

Various surveys have indicated that 20-30% of the US population broadly align with libertarian principles, regardless of party affiliation or nominal identification. This aligns fairly well with the proportion of the electorate that had negative opinions of both Trump and Harris in the last election (even those who took a "lesser of evils" approach and voted for one of them).

Oooo I can play that game too:

99% of people agree with liberal policies: ask anyone if they'd like to pay less for better healthcare coverage.

Everyone would agree they'd like to pay less for health care. Much fewer would agree with specific proposals purporting to achieve that. Many people understand that the accumulation of political interventions over the past ~60 years are the primary thing driving costs up.

The only thing wrong with your narrative is that private insurance has been dominant for the past 60 years. And THAT is driving up costs. (See: Luigi). In fact, it would be easy to demonstrate that government investment in research has done vastly more than the private sector w.r.t. vaccines and immunization and regulations. Oh no, I said the scary "r-word", I hope you didn't run and hide in your libertarian safe space.

I don't know if you're new to HN or if you made an alt account just for this, but…

The underlying principle of HN is that discussions should engender curiosity.

Talking point pissing matches and trying to dunk in replies permeate conversation everywhere else, especially when the people in power are controversial. Please take that energy elsewhere.

If you wanna participate in HN, aim for replies that everyone would find interesting. This isn't a board for interpersonal arguments.

I'm from Nevada.

I know lots of conservatives who aren't religious.