For Those Who Think Threats against Superdelegates Are Trivial:

[MineralMan]

Here's a story from Seattle about threats to U. S. House Representaive Jim McDermott. The story is true, and the threats were over the Congressman's support for Hillary Clinton as a superdelegate:

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/charges-man-threatened-to-cut-off-jim-mcdermotts-tongue/

A man who allegedly threatened to cut out U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott’s tongue because he felt his own voice was being “silenced” is charged with intimidation and telephone harassment.

A man who allegedly threatened to cut out the tongue of U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott — rattling the congressman so badly he brought a shovel to his office for protection — has been charged with intimidating a public servant and telephone harassment.

Jasper K. Bell, 27, is being held on $200,000 bail after prosecutors allege he showed up at McDermott’s Seattle office Friday and banged on the locked doors hard enough to shake furniture.
{snip}
Bell, who was arrested around 8 o’clock that evening, reportedly told police that he made the threats to McDermott in an attempt to get the representative to support Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton, prosecutors said.

Anyone who thinks that this crap is trivial and unimportant really, really needs to read this news story.

[LexVegas]

1. Berniebros. nt

[MineralMan]

2. A deranged person. I don't use the Berniebros word.

There is still an association, however. It's a scary one sometimes.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

51. Yes, we all run around banging on doors and yelling threats.

Maybe after a few beers ...

[whatchamacallit]

3. What's your point? He's a crazy guy. Crazy people support all kinds of candidates.

[MineralMan]

4. Did you read the article?

If not, please do that.

[whatchamacallit]

6. I did. Now please explain it's relevance in GDP.

[MineralMan]

8. Here's the last paragraph of the article:

Bell, who was arrested around 8 o’clock that evening, reportedly told police that he made the threats to McDermott in an attempt to get the representative to support Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton, prosecutors said.

That's the relevance to GDP. It's quite clear, I think.

[whatchamacallit]

9. I'm curious about your title tho

Are you insinuating this behavior is common?

[MineralMan]

11. Threats are common. No question about it.

You weren't aware of threats made against superdelegates before now? Here's a recent article from Fortune Magazine on the subject:

http://fortune.com/2016/04/28/clinton-sanders-superdelegates-harassed/

Go read that, too. My own congressional rep has turned threats over to law enforcement.

[whatchamacallit]

13. Like I figured, an attempt to associate "threats" like

"I won't vote for you next time" with actual death threats from lunatics.

[NCTraveler]

5. Too many deranged people out there.

Clinton has some very thoughtful ideas on increasing access to mental health help.

I will continue to fight for sick people like this. I don't want to down talk them. They have serious mental health issues that are going unaddressed. Just another reason I went with Clinton after O'Malley dropped out.

[Jitter65]

7. You mean they aren't blaming Bernie for this? Hillary would have been blamed if this had been

one of her supporters threatening a Bernie super.

Oh, I know, McDermott bought it on himself for being a Democrat for Hillary. I understand.

[MineralMan]

10. There's no reason to blame Bernie for this.

I'm talking about his supporters, and specifically about the one in the article. I've seen vile threats against my own House Rep. on her Facebook page. They've been removed, but I saw them.

We cannot continue to go down this path. It is a losing path.

[Punkingal]

12. Fear, fear, fear.

And I suppose you want us to think this is an average Bernie supporter. I'm quite sure there are no bat-shit crazy Hillary supporters. You post crap like this because you want to paint Bernie supporters as crazy and dangerous. What purpose does it serve?

[MineralMan]

14. No, I don't want anyone to think this is an average Sanders supporter.

Obviously, it's not. Still, many superdelegates have reported similar harrassment and threats. See this Fortune article:

http://fortune.com/2016/04/28/clinton-sanders-superdelegates-harassed/

There's more, if you'd care to Google.

Why should anyone who is a superdelegate be threatened at all? It's politics. They can support who they choose.

Go look at Al Franken's Facebook page. Unlike some elected superdelegates, he has left the attacks visible. You'll have no trouble finding them. I imagine his staff is removing actual physical threats and reporting those to authorities, but the ugly rhetoric remains.

Sanders doesn't condone this, of course. But it's frequent enough to be a real issue for those who are superdelegates. Intimidation is an ugly thing, and it's a real thing in this primary campaign.

[Punkingal]

15. Intimidation is very real.

And we all know Bill and Hillary Clinton are quite effective practitioners of it. I wonder how many super delegates would be on board so early if not for that fact about the Clintons?

[anigbrowl]

49. WTF

You are more concerned about imaginary intimidation from the Clintons (absent any evidence) than you are about actual incidents of violence...that's just absurd. It's OK to be suspicious of your opponent and be on the lookout for evidence that might confirm your suspicions, but when you are giving imaginary crimes greater weight than actual ones then your judgement is shot.

[Punkingal]

54. I'm not talking about crimes for Pete's sake.

I'm talking about political intimidation, such as Bill calling Rep. Clyburn at 2;00 AM during the 2008 campaign to scream at him, or Hillary telling Loretta Lynch one time if she did something (can't remember what it was) she would never work in politics again. That is the kind of intimidation they do so well. Don't put words in my mouth and if you have never heard those stories, use google.

[anigbrowl]

56. Well that's what the OP is about

People who know each other can and do call each other up and yell at each other, but that's a really really long way from threatening to cut people's tongue's out and trying to break into their offices. That's what this thread is about, so when you draw comparisons with the Clintons intimidating people then you're basically trying to say that one thing is little different from another. You chose to make the comparison, not me.

[Punkingal]

66. Bullshit.

[morningfog]

16. If super delegates don't like getting contacted, they should support the end of the super delegate

process.

[MineralMan]

17. I see. So the threats are the superdelegates' own fault?

Now, there's some weird logic, to be sure.

[morningfog]

18. Did I say that? Nope.

[anigbrowl]

50. Threatening someone is not an acceptable form of contact

If you think it's OK to tell someone you're going to cut their tongue out, then I see problems in your future.

[morningfog]

52. I don't condone that and didn't say that I do.

You can keep your expectations of my future to yourself.

[anigbrowl]

53. Of course you do

You replied to an OP about specific physical threats and acts of violence by saying that superdelegates have to put up with people trying to contact them. Your post was responsive to the part about superdelegates while completely ignoring the fact of the threatening behavior, so it's not like you mistakenly posted in a completely wrong thread. You made a deliberate choice to overlook the violence described in the OP and to put the blame on the superdelegate for complaining about it.

You didn't endorse such behavior explicitly but your remarks make it more than clear that you find it acceptable.

[morningfog]

57. I'm saying, try to follow, the super delegate process opens the supers up to harassment.

This same story has been posted often. I have said it is wrong for anyone to threaten others.

But, when a super delegates are given 15% of the nominating power without being held to any standard, it is not a surprise that they will get lobbied and even harassed in a close contest. The DNC sets them up for it with the super delegate process.

It is not acceptable for the lobbying to escalate to threats of physical violence, obviously. THat is a crime. But, they should expect to be contacted, even repeatedly, and they should expect voters to threaten to vote them out of office.

If I were a super delegate, I would abstain from voting and support a change in the rules to discontinue their use. It is ripe for abuse and harassment.

[anigbrowl]

60. Oh so now it's the party's fault

Actually no, I don't think anyone should expect to be intimidated. I have no problem with a small number of people who have first hand experience of electoral politics having a disproportionate amount of nominating power through the super delegate process. Those people are uniquely well qualified to form an opinion on the viability of different candidates and I value their insight even whee it points to a different conclusion from mine. I do not think very highly of 'one person one vote in every context because so many people are foolish and easily manipulated.

[morningfog]

61. At least you are open about your support for undemocratic processes.

[anigbrowl]

63. Yes I am

I like results, and raw democracy works poorly in my view. This entire thread is a good example of why.

[procon]

19. Bernie can't control them.

"Bell, who was arrested around 8 o’clock that evening, reportedly told police that he made the threats to McDermott in an attempt to get the representative to support Sanders instead of Hillary Clinton, prosecutors said."

Between the Trump fans and the Bernie Bros, someone is going to get killed before this is over.

[MineralMan]

20. I hope your last sentence isn't true.

Of course Bernie can't control his supporters who aren't part of his campaign organization. That's impossible for any candidate. This year, however, the level of harassment goes far beyond anything I've ever seen before, and I've been around for a long, long time.

I believe violence is possible, but hope it doesn't happen.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Because we all know Hillary fans are peaches and cream

Let me tell you something. After my experience here, with members of this board, who are HRC supporters, I see the insanity. What you are doing is projection. And now we have a survey (with moe and everything) that showed the most aggressive fans are trumps, followed by Clinton's, with Bernie's a distant third.

Projection sir

And no I will not forget it, or forgive them either

[procon]

33. Hogwash.

Your experience here, like everyone else's, involves a battle of vocabulary words, not violence. There is no comparison between the two.

Since there's no "survey" in this OP, your remark is completely off topic and it's impossible to understand what you're going off about.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Excuse me, but denying my life experience and status as an immigrant and PoC

Is a form of verbal violence. Live with it or not. I really give two shits what you think. But now we have actual numbers online Trump supporters are the most aggressive, followed by Clinton's. .

By the way, your actions will suppress the vote in November as well...it is minor. The fact that both suck ass will do it to a much greater extent. Ah...low turnout election. Danger, Will Robinson, danger.

Personally it will be a classic exercise of political science

[procon]

42. I know not this "we" of whom you speak.

My crystal ball is out of batteries and the dog drank all the magic water out of my divining bowl. Oh gawds, now look what you've made be do... your incoherent rambling must be contagious.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. Classic

And expected

[procon]

45. But not babbling nonsensical phrases... yet. Is itching a symptom? nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. More of the same

[procon]

47. Yeah, it's just boredom. No worries, I won't remember a thing you said in an hour or two. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

48. Hilarious

[politicaljunkie41910]

59. You really need to listen to yourself and the tone that you are projecting.

You talk about "Verbal Violence" and here you are the one whose language is over the top and ranting like a lunatic. I know you're going to cuss me out when you read this as well, but I don't care. You're just proving the OP's point.

Bernie's supporters have reached a Cult-like status. If you don't know the difference between a supporter and a Cult follower, you might be the latter. We see it all over the web, not just this website. It's evident on this board as people here are personally attacked on a daily basis. The venom that is spewed daily; the asinine discussion topics posed as ridiculous questions which are more statements than discussion topics are never ending. You have a right to vote for whomever you wish. But when free speech turns into intimidation or threats as described in the OP, than you have crossed the line from debate to delusional, and you are out of control. When Bernie and his Bros, repeated question Hillary's honesty, and implies that there is something nafarious about her taking what are otherwise legal campaign donations, or giving speeches which is a legal activity, and he says these things while pausing to wait for his audience to boo, he knows that he is getting these people riled up and there is always the possibility that some in his audience will go to far.

[nadinbrzezinski]

62. Ranting like a lunatic when poiting this was done is not ranting like a lunatic

what i see is a rejection of that reality by people like you.

By the way, now I have data on my side

For as long as there has been democracy, there have been allegations of incivility levied by one side of the political divide against the other.

A survey of 1,017 Americans over the age of 18 set out to quantify that rancor for the 2016 election cycle, and the results cast some doubt on a long-standing narrative of the Democratic presidential primary: That the supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders have been significantly nastier online then the supporters of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The survey, which was conducted online in early March and has a margin of error of 3.07 percent, asked people to rate how aggressive they saw the online supporters of each presidential candidate.

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/online-incivility-study-bernie-bro/

You by the way, doing what you just did, was another one of those denial of the experience of another person, tinged with a classic personal attack,

It is funny as shit. and lacks complete self awareness.

By the way, it is not a nasty RW conspiracy, what is happening with the FBI. But we are going down a very dark path, that we as a country have walked down before. It is willful, but proves that in general humans suck at learning from history. And you are comparing news with denial of personal stories. Nice sparky.

And with that, please proceed governor. This is really at this point really funny hilarious shit.

[Amaril]

21. Unfortunately, there are people.......

....in our society that struggle with mental health issues, and *any* threat of bodily harm should be taken seriously / elevated to the proper authorities (I don't know that the DNC is necessarily the proper authority -- local law enforcement would seem to be a better choice).

Someone making such a threat is no more speaking on Sanders behalf that the idiots who posted the Sanders glow stick thing are speaking on behalf of Clinton.

This shit needs to stop.

[MineralMan]

23. I agree. All physical threats should be turned over to law enforcement, at

whatever level that has authority. For Member of Congress, that would be the U. S. Marshall's department. For others, it would be a local matter.

In the Washington case, the person was arrested and charged. That should be the result of these threats. Some threats are credible, while others probably aren't. If I were a superdelegate, I'd leave the decision about that up to law enforcement authorities. I'd report all of them that came in that had any physical threat implied in them.

Some of these threats are real and dangerous. So far, there hasn't been a tragedy. I hope there never is.

[Bluenorthwest]

22. Distrubed individuals threathen public figures regularly, this is McDermott's third serious

incident the last was 2011 and the rhetoric was about taxes, not candidates. And that's an important fact. What they say they are motivated by is obviously not all that grounded in reality, the same sorts of threats are aimed at actors and other celebrities who are not political. People who have very serious cognitive issues.
These days, and in 2011 such things are far more actionable than they were in the past. McDermott's 2011 stalker went to jail and this guy will too, this guy came to the office. Back in my younger days people could get by with a great deal of verbal threatening and a good deal of action with the law leaving no room to take action. Efforts by various groups including performer's Unions have changed that, so this fucker will be locked up good.

[MineralMan]

24. Yes, that's true. And I'm sure that particular person will

face consequences. That's a good thing, and I'm glad such things are taken more seriously now than they once were.

My point was simply that such threats are not trivial matters. They should be taken seriously.

[aspirant]

28. Do you have an upcoming thread on Ted Nugent?

[Bluenorthwest]

31. Of course they are not trival, personal security issues are in fact personal to me.

However, I think any attempt to use this as primary partisan fodder does trivialize the issue.
The creep that shot Ronald Reagan thought he was doing it for Jodi Foster. He was not. He did it because he is a disturbed individual. What the creeps say they are motivated by is not the testimony we should set forth as important. Note I don't name that creep. I also will not quote him, nor cite his own statement for any fucking reason under the stars. I think that to do so is in fact to trivialize the crime.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. And that creep was treated, due to connections and money, as a mental health

Issue, as most of the cases like that one should

[procon]

41. It astounds me that people don't think of the consequences before reacting.

That fear was an important controlling factor in my own youthful, impulsive foolishness. The risks are probably even worth toady is he's convicted or committed, that stuff is permanently attached to him forever and will negatively affect his whole life. Maybe its just youthful stupidity where the brain isn't yet mature enough to have developed critical thinking skills. I just can't wrap my head around a mental disorder that compels a person to attack someone over political differences.

[Punkingal]

43. "Disorder" is the key word.

It is hard for people to wrap their head around it because they are in a different place. Be glad you don't get it.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

25. Yet another reason to abandon the Super Delegate system.

[MineralMan]

30. That's not my call. That's a national Democratic Party decision.

They instituted the system and only they can dismantle it. While I'm an active participant in party organization activities, I'm at a low enough level that I have virtually no input into national decision-making.

There was a resolution presented at our state senate district convention calling for the end of the superdelegate policies. I haven't seen the report of the voting on resolutions yet. If it passed there, it would have gone to the congressional district convention. This year, I wasn't a delegate to that for lack of time. From there, if such a resolution passed, it would go to the state convention. If it passed there, it would be presented at the national convention.

For me, it's a minor issue, really, so I haven't been following it. I doubt it will happen, though.

For the record, I voted for the resolution to abolish the superdelegate system at my state senate district convention. I don't think superdelegates are necessary. But, they're not going to go away this year, so that's that.

Changing the nominating system would probably take at least two presidential election cycles, frankly. I think the change is unlikely. There are times when superdelegates could be very useful in preventing something like what happened in 1968. There are reasonable arguments for the existence of that system.

Frankly, this year, with only two candidates for the nomination, they are not needed at all, and will vote for the candidate with the majority of pledged delegates. I think we all know who that will be, really.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. You know this is what cops are for, together with district attorney's and courts

And I would say that these threats come regardless of electoral year or not.

In reality it should be mental institutions but we don't take mental health issues seriously.

[Thinkingabout]

27. The super delegates are here to stay, after seeing the results in the GOP this year all the more

reason to have super delegates, the DNC does not want a hostile take over by other parties. It was a very smart move.

[floriduck]

32. Important but isolated or you would have written about every one of them.

I don't condone such actions but I wouldn't use one incident like this to paint an entire group of people. That would be profiling or exaggeration. Neither are acceptable.

[MineralMan]

34. I do not have time to write about every threat, or even to do the

research. Google can help, if you're interested in more information on that. I posted one very serious example. Elsewhere in the thread, I linked to a Fortune Magazine article. There are plenty of other resources available if you want to go look around.

I can't spend that much time to post on DU.

You can start here:

https://www.google.com/#q=super+delegates+threatened&start=10

[floriduck]

37. That's what I expected from you. Take the low hanging fruit, even if it's the only one (or two).

What a gigantic FAIL.

[MineralMan]

39. Uff da!

Good luck with that. Go do the Google search at that link and keep on looking. I'm not a news bureau, nor your research assistant. Now, if you'd like to pay me for that, I do have a rate for such research. I get $50/hr for it. If you'd like to retain me, send me DU Mail with information on where to send my contract.

[floriduck]

40. Sorry Mr Man, I don't dredge for dirt. I was just critical of your decision to Brock one on us.

[aikoaiko]

35. Once the threats become an illegal act, they have gone too far.

But threatening to end support or vote against someone are acceptable threats.

[dchill]

55. I do not condone violence or threats of violence.

But subverting democracy has often resulted in violence. Like in certain British colonies.

[cherokeeprogressive]

58. Looks to me like this is an example of the system working exactly as it should.

Guy makes threat... guy gets arrested.

[1StrongBlackMan]

64. Sadly ... Reading this thread is a lot like reading the comment section of a newspaper ...

the day after a Planned Parenthood shooting/bombing/arson or the day after a racist attack ... so many #NotAll ... apologia.

What is so hard about saying, "Wow, that's messed up. I do not support this conduct. PERIOD!"?

[MineralMan]

65. Excellent question.