You got what you deserve, Republican Party...

[A Black Falcon]

I'm not trying to "sit on the fence" here, but you're both right, just about different things.

Sanders voters ARE being disenfranchised, mainly because all voters are being disenfranchised by the two-party system and the way it sets up these primaries.

People are not being "disenfranchised" if they chose to not join a party. That's them choosing to not play a part in how we choose candidates in this country, not anything wrong with the system.

Clinton IS the more popular candidate, even once you take that disenfranchisement under consideration.

This is quite true, and it's unfortunate that a lot of people supporting Sanders are in denial of this. They talk about the "will of the people" as if only Bernie could possibly represent the peoples' will, while Hillary got more votes, a lot more votes! This clearly means she has the will of the people behind her, not him.

Those two issues aside, there's a bad trend among a certain branch of Sanders supporters that so distrust Clinton they might simply abstain. http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-...ers-voter/

ABF, this is not a license to say "the Sanders supporters doomed us to Trump" in the event that such a situation happens.

Yes, it would be, if that horrible scenario came to pass. Fortunately, however, most will end up supporting Clinton, once the heat of this campaign passes, so this is quite unlikely.

Ultimately, the ones that would be responsible for this are the Trump supports and the Trump supporters alone. It wouldn't matter WHAT Sanders supporters did if no one supported Trump, and that's where the blame needs to lie. It's much like how so many Dems got so mad at the third party voters in the 2000 election, saying that the presence of a third candidate "stole" all the votes that would have gone to the Democrats. That's not true, and getting mad at voters for supporting a third pillar because they weren't voting "strategically" is putting the blame in the wrong place. The ones responsible for Bush Jr are, and always have been, the people voting for Bush Jr. They're the ones to get mad at.

Guilt tripping people just because they aren't following the two party system like good little voters is just plain wrong, if you ask me.

This is quite wrong. First though, the Bush part, because it is a very good example. I've always blamed several things for why Bush became president and not Gore: 1) Gore campaign failings -- he won, but it could have been a stronger win. Distancing himself from Clinton was a mistake. 2) The Supreme Court, for going against the peoples' vote [in Florida] and deciding, 4-3, that Bush is president even though had Florida finished counting Gore almost certainly would have won. 3) People in Florida who believed Ralph Nader's false statements about "the two parties are the same" and voted for him, or were confused by that infamous "butterfly ballot" and voted for someone else instead of Gore. The bottom line is, like it or not, but voting for a third-party candidate IS basically voting for the main-party candidate you most dislike. That is how our system works. And I do wish we had a better system which allowed for more parties, but it's an okay system as it is and it works fairly well.

What is NOT directly to blame are people who voted for Bush. Here's why. I have put many hours into volunteering for the Maine Democratic Party in the 2010, 2012, and 2014 campaigns. And in all three of those campaigns, the partys' efforts are focused on turnout. Getting people who support you to vote is the #1 most important thing for every competitive campaign! Talking to voters and trying to convince them to support your side is key as well, but the most important thing is getting people who support you to the polls. Once someone has clearly stated support for another candidate, we stopped calling that person; their vote is probably lost. Certainly their turnout matters as well, but those 2010 and 2014 losses were much more because Democrats don't care enough to vote in midterm elections at the same rates Republicans do, rather than Republicans getting amazing turnout. There might be an exception to this in the Maine 2nd Congressional District in 2014, where wide Republican wins were fueled by several factors including very high turnout on their side that election, but even there, had we gotten similar turnout on our side there it wouldn't have been as bad... regardless of how the other side is doing, you win by getting your side out to vote. Of course, this only applies to competitive races, not ones in seats dominated by one party, but still, it is true.