This was not the cycle for a protest vote, I shouted that from the rooftops as much as I could. They could have taken their revenge after the rapist was cast aside but decided to vote for someone who new nothing about nothing and we ended up with the worst person imaginable and a slew of people who want to tear down everything society has built over 70 years.
To play devils advocate for a moment, for a lot of those people they didn't feel they could just beat Trump and then take their revenge, they thought (and on this small point I do agree with them) that a Hillary win would simply have cemented the hold of the neo-liberals over the party. It's extremely difficult to force change from people who have just won, even when the win seemed so inevitable.
For the left wing of the party (and many of those who had simply left the party in despair), they've seen their economic concerns basically ignored for the best part of two decades now, since Bill was in power. Bernie was their first real chance for change, and from their perspective being told this wasn't the cycle for a protest was just more of the same message they'd been force fed every four years "This isn't the time - stop dividing the party - do you want to hand the election to the repubs?" etc etc.