I'm not "complaining" about anything. I'm looking for context and trying to understand what exactly the Democratic Party is starting to fracture over at... pretty much literally the lest opportune time to do that.
Hmm? Starting to fracture? The Democratic Party has been something of a disparate mess, aka "Big Tent" party for a long time. I didn't think that this was anything new. I would dare to say that it's probably actually more unified these days with the increase in party polarization than it used to be.
As for some of the visibility... it may be worth remembering that the MSM is largely slightly right-wing, given the directions of the owners, even if the reporters themselves are more likely to lean a bit to the left... and that things like Warren's progressive push to break up some of the really big corporations poses a threat to them, which has led to them playing up the divisions and trying to shape things a bit back to their favor. That includes playing up this particular division and taking a whole lot of swipes at progressives where they think they can get away with it and playing up, for example, Biden, by quite a lot even long before he announced his run and having remarkably different reactions to say, a Red Wave and a Blue Wave in Congressperson selection. Red Wave - Mandate of the People! Mandate of the People! Mandate of the People! Blue Wave with a distinctly Progressive flavor - Oh, that happened? Moving on.
We have X number of Democratic supporting traditional, mainstream Democrats. We have Y number of Democrats supporting more progressive candidates.
So if the Dems nominate, we'll use Pelosi as an example, this will alienate, to some degree, the "Progressive Democrats."
If they nominate Harris, again just as a Ur example, this will alienate the more mainstream democrats.
1. Which choice will lead to more voters just staying home?
2. Which choice will lead to more voters switching sides totally to the Republican?
3. Which choice has the most risk of splitting the vote between two candidates?
The general tone seems to be we'll "lose" (either to apathy, split votes, or full on lane crossing) more voters if we don't back a progressive candidate, but even if it's the other way around the same question needs to be asked.
This actually is a harder question. There's a lot of people doing what people tend to do... drawing favorable conclusions to their position based on questionable data and frequently using that to combat other conclusions based on questionable data. This is further complicated by trolls, US and foreign, trying to chip in and get candidates that they prefer selected, whether to make Trump more likely to win or to limit the meaningfulness of the win. There's a Republican push to get Marianne qualified for the next debate with lots and lots of $1 donations, for example, and there's Gravel being pushed by anarchists, of course, to name a couple of the open troll moves, as well as a hoard of right-winger advice columns to the Democrats to go right and maybe, just maybe, they'll deign to give their votes to the Democrats. Well, maybe not
them, but people like them. Given MSM, center left and further voices get very little attention much of the time. Either way, there's usually the implicit assumption that "independent" means "center," rather than "across the political spectrum, just not officially Democrat or Republican."
I'm asking the people who are going to vote Democrat only if their candidate(s) of choice get the nomination talk about that. I think it's good information to have.
Who are these people who are going to stay home, vote for Trump, or vote for a non-nominated candidate and what are their reasoning? I want to hear from them.
Hmm. That depends a bit on who and why. All of the candidates will have people who don't want to vote for them for one reason or another. It sounds more like you're asking about the few who go "my candidate or protest vote," like a chunk of the "Bernie Bros" famously did... and the situation now isn't quite the same as it was in 2015/2016, so that group's likely not quite as fixed on him. To delve into some of the underlying reasons for those Bernie Bros, though... There's a lot of people who want substantial change for the better - away from the current trends of, well, them being effectively screwed over, bit by bit, as rich people and the corporations associated with them profit off them more and more, then casually discard them. With the government clearly working to help the rich people more and more and helping them less and less. If a Democrat's promising status quo, that's not actually good for them, which makes it more likely that they become apathetic or engage in behavior that would harm themselves. For people who are leery of each of the rest, there are plenty of reason. Wall Street democrats might be forced to choose between taking a hit to their short-term profits and general political influence when faced with Warren or Bernie or voting for Trump for the sake of short-term checkbook balances, to poke at another side of things, though that's not specifically the "My candidate or else!" that you're asking for.
