I've been a self-proclaimed socialist for a decent amount of time now, and if you asked me a year ago if I thought someone of the same political persuasion had a chance in an American election, I would have laughed you back into your time machine.
^
This pretty much is how I would've reacted a year ago, and I'm of a similar political vein. I typically say "I have heavy socialist leanings," and I like to compare the U.S. to socialist nations in Europe (especially Scandinavia) when talking about what we could - and should - be more like.
Frankly, the politics surrounding the race - namely the psychological factor of the superdelegates' votes being known from the get-go - probably helped secure Sanders' loss. People don't want to vote for a "lost" cause, and the superdelegates ALL being in favor of Clinton made things look super grim.
Even though I'm not supportive of either Sanders, why the fuck didn't he get the black vote. For fuck's sake, Shillary Clinton and her husband, Bill Clinton, are one of the destructive reasons why the Prison Industrial Complex and War on Drugs are/were prominent in contemporary society. These things fucked up impoverished African-American citizens to the Nth degree.
Yeah... Didn't they also introduce the whole "three strikes and you're out" rule for criminals? Which, of course, most heavily affects the African American population? I mean, it's easy to get three strikes when very large percentages of black New York youths get arrested each year? I forget the exact number, but this topic was discussed in one of my psychology classes last year. I can probably find a TED Talk about this. I'll do some digging later. My gut says it was a huge percentage, and it was a matter of "when" you get arrested, not "if."
EDIT: There's an article I need to go find that my mom was telling me about just yesterday or the day before, actually. It concerned the "three strikes" rule. Long story short, a man who had a clean record for a LONG time (~20 years?) wound up getting thrown into prison for having a small amount of marijuana he was growing for himself. And IIRC that marijuana was only heavy enough to get him thrown in prison because they counted the weight of the stems, which you're not supposed to count, and the
judge said "this is stupid but because of this law that's in place I have to throw you in jail."
