GQ: The #NeverWarren Attacks Are No Help to Bernie Sanders Either

[TomCADem]

In the wake of New Hampshire, could it be argued that Bernie's decision to once again go negative and paint Warren as a liar and candidate of the elite was the right one tactically? This is almost Trump like in that regardless of how much an ally Warren might have been, Bernie has no problem destroying allies in his quest for power.

https://www.gq.com/story/never-warren-attacks-bernie-sanders

The morning after the seventh Democratic primary debate, and less than three weeks before the critical Iowa caucuses, a friendly competitive tension between the two most progressive candidates in the race has devolved into Bernie Sanders’s supporters bombarding Elizabeth Warren’s Twitter feed with snake emojis—a metaphorical throwback to the Bible’s original untrustworthy woman—after Warren refused to shake his hand on stage.

How did we get here?

* * *
To be fair, Warren supporters and Sanders supporters both have legitimate reasons to be angry and frustrated. Anyone who tried to call out blatant sexism against Hillary Clinton in 2016 (she was criticized both for not smiling enough and for smiling too much) were told over and over, particularly by Sanders fans, that his voters would be fine with a female president, just not her. They said they would be thrilled to vote for Warren if she were running, but that Clinton was just a bad candidate, regardless of gender. And now that Warren is running, she’s being Hillary-ized: called a serial liar, called unlikeable, cast as an elitist and a corporate shill. Sanders has acknowledged that his campaign in 2016 was overwhelmingly male and white and had real sexism issues; several of his female staffers complained about pay inequity and sexual misconduct. The senator resolved to fix that this time around by hiring a majority female and 40 percent minority staff and implementing new anti-discrimination policies. Some of his more vocal supporters were also as rude and aggressive toward Clinton supporters online as Trump supporters were, so the idea that Sanders cast doubt on women’s electability really strikes a nerve for a lot of people. The snake emojis Wednesday morning certainly don’t clear up the perception of Sanders’s supporters as cyberbullies who can lean on misogynist tropes.

Sanders supporters feel like the accusations of sexism are a low blow at this point against a candidate who has a long history of supporting women’s rights in Congress, who has been saying since at least the 1980s that a woman could be president, and who now has a much more diverse and gender-balanced campaign and support base than he did in 2016. They’re tired of being cast as “Bernie bros,” when many women and people of color support Sanders too. They are also rightfully angry that the mainstream media has long been so clearly biased against Sanders, often noting in headlines and cable news segments that other candidates are surging without mentioning when Sanders moves to the top of a poll.

[Cha]

1. KR!!!!

[CowboyProgressive]

2. I wouldn't call any candidate running on our ticket 'Trump like'.

Just undemocratic.

[SamKnause]

3. I like Bernie.

I like Elizabeth.