Bernie 2016 was a much better campaign than 2020 because of one reason. Bernie personally hated Hillary, didn't rate Hillary, and not Hillary's friend. The 2016 campaign against Hillary had much more artillery and venom than the 2020 campaign against Biden. Bernie has always been Joe Biden's friend when they were at the Senate.
We all maligned the collusion and consolidation of power that happened before Super Tuesday 2020 - but that was really pertaining to Klobuchar and Mayo Pete dropping out, two third rate politicians. The race was not over then. After it was a 1v1 race, Bernie REFUSES to attack Biden like he attacked Hillary. Biden is as much of a corporate sellout as Hillary. Bernie could've attacked Biden's cognitive decline, which was clear even back in 2020. He could've attacked Biden corrupt family dealing. I was a volunteer canvasser in 2016 and 2020, I knocked thousands of doors for Bernie in NH and MA, it was incredibly frustrating that Bernie wouldn't make a case against Biden like he did against Hillary. That's why Bernie 2020 sucked.
Bernie rolled over, and joined Democrat leadership in Biden administration, essentially extinguished the populist left wing and ceding the populist working class movement to the right. And here we are, Trump is 47th, because Bernie refused to attack "my friend Joe".
Now Bernard had the balls to blame the Democratic party for abandoning the working class, dude you abandoned your volunteers and campaign for your friend Joe.
Bernie is always going to be a frustrating figure to me because, for all his many increasingly obvious and glaring faults, it was in large part thanks to him that I got into left-wing thought at all. I can't say I'm a fan of his at this point, but I'll kind of always owe him for getting me to start abandoning capitalism.