First, let me emphasize that I was writing in response to the OP. The OP implied that we should "finally ... come together for the 2018 mid-terms" and stop "fighting among ourselves over who will run for House and Senate seats in 2018." I disagree. In many races, it's far too early to come together behind the Democratic nominee, because there are (or may be) multiple contenders for the Democratic nomination. Where there's disagreement over who will run, we'll be "fighting among ourselves" until the primary is over.
As a general rule, the effect of a primary fight is a mixed bag. Sometimes it helps to get our candidates and their views more exposure. Whoever is the nominee gets the benefit of being perceived as a winner, and may be in a better position than if the nomination had been uncontested. On the other hand, some of the supporters of the losing candidate(s) are so embittered by the fight that they won't vote for the nominee, even if they otherwise might have.
In the case of 2016, I think it was also a mixed bag. If no one had run against Clinton, she wouldn't have had the opportunity to appear in televised debates, where she could present the real person for viewers who until then knew only a media caricature. (I think it was a big mistake for Debbie Wasserman Schultz to restrict the debates to six, but it would have been even worse if the Republicans had had the airwaves entirely to themselves.) The succession of state contests also helps a campaign improve its messaging, figure out which staffers are the most capable, etc. In addition, the Sanders campaign brought into the process many people who hadn't paid much attention in the past (many of whom weren't even registered to vote until Sanders mobilized them); most of those people then voted for Clinton in November. Note that Sanders got about 13 million votes while Stein got about 1 million.
As against that, there were probably some people who were affected by the divisiveness. If Clinton had won the nomination without a serious contest, they would have unenthusiastically voted for her, but several months of perceiving her as "the enemy" left them too angry to do that; they voted for Stein or stayed home. My guess is that this number is comparatively small. With or without the Sanders campaign, Clinton had an image of being on the more conservative wing of the Democratic Party. (The name "Clinton" conjures up triangulation, the Third Way, and "the era of big government is over." It isn't completely fair to identify Hillary with Bill but it isn't completely unfair, given that there were only a few issues where she explicitly broke from his policies. Anyway, whether it's fair or not, that was her image.) Most of the people who voted for Stein would have voted for Stein even if Clinton had won the nomination without a contest. My guess is that the Sanders campaign, followed by his endorsement of and campaigning for Clinton, was a net gain for her in the general.
With that background, your questions:
Do you agree that the contentiousness of the last primary divided Democrats and gave the Russian bots a big-ass chink in our wall to bring an army through? And then do you agree that army turned a lot of people on the left against Hillary in the general election, and contributed to our loss? And do you agree that there were only degrees of difference between the two possible candidates, so that those defections made absolutely no sense?
No, no, and mostly no.
People who considered Clinton too conservative, and therefore didn't vote for her, weren't significantly influenced by Russian bots. The vast majority of them would have reached that conclusion with or without any Russian interference. For example, I don't think Cornel West is a Russian agent or was influenced at all by Russian agents. He endorsed Obama in 2008 but then moved to criticizing him. In 2014 -- note that's
2014, well before the primaries -- he gave an interview in an article titled
"Cornel West: 'He posed as a progressive and turned out to be counterfeit. We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency'”. He was going to vote for Stein over Clinton regardless. I think that orientation was pretty common among those on the left who were against Clinton. They weren't turned against her just because of the primary. That's why I answer "No" to your first two questions.
As to the third, "absolutely no sense" is a bit too strong. I personally thought that the differences between Clinton and Trump dwarfed the differences between Sanders and Clinton, so I voted for her in November, but I can understand those who disagreed. I'd go with "made absolutely no sense" as to those who thought Stein might win. Those who recognized that she had no chance but chose to cast a protest vote were making a huge mistake but they were at least a little more grounded in reality.
Finally, I don't think anyone made chumps of us.
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