There's folks who are CALLED "alt-left", and there are Bernie supporters...they are not the same.

[DanTex]

84. I don't know how to measure appeal, but Jimmy Dore and TYT aren't just nothing.

Now, granted, most people on TYT aren't nearly as nutty as Dore is, but still, people like him do have a following. If DU is any measure of anything, he got posted here fairly often before the "purge", as did other equally if not more nutty people like HA Goodman and "Sane Progressive." So, at least in one online political circle that you and I both frequent, they are (or were) somewhat influential.

Especially in light of the fact that a lot of people get their news from Facebook or youtube now, I don't think the Jimmy Dores of the world can just be dismissed as fringe. I mean, Alex Jones is certainly fringe, but he has a huge following. Also, remember that at the convention last summer, a significant minority of the delegates were actually booing a lot of the speakers. That was in the real world, not the fringe world. Where did they get their ideas? Where did Bernie-or-Bust come from? It came from "fringe" social and alternative media sites, where people like Dore and HA Goodman and the rest are influential.

You're right that Sarandon and West wouldn't say all the things that Dore has said. But they'd say different, arguably equally stupid things. Sarandon's whole Trump will make things will "really explode" comment is for the record books. West's "n****rized" comment about Obama wasn't so great either. And all three of them endorsed Jill Stein, which in my book comes pretty close to endorsing Trump.

As far as Joy Reid, of course, you're right, she has much more reach and exposure than Jimmy Dore. And, yes, obviously she has been critical of Bernie and his movement. That in itself is not problematic, though. There's a difference between "incorrect" and problematic, and I'm not even ready to concede that she's incorrect.

I don't know what comments of hers you are referring to specifically, but I do recall her pointing out that it is curious that the left has come down so hard on Booker and Harris. But again that's pretty far from saying, in your words, that it "must be for the color of their skin". And there are a lot of dimensions to that. For example, one angle is that the Bernie movement is often suspicious of "identity politics", and that suspicion can bleed over into a belief that minority or women candidates are "tokens", potentially using their gender or race to appease progressives while pursuing conservative economic policies. In fact, we saw plenty of that during the primary when people would argue that all Hillary had going for her was her gender. Also, remember Bernie himself made that poorly worded comment about how the country had "overcome racism" and that people shouldn't be basing their votes on their color.

Another angle is that African Americans, and AA women in particular, are the most loyal Democratic voters, and not only did Bernie do very poorly in that demographic, but a lot of the rhetoric coming from his supporters about the future of the party talks about the "white working class." And so on. So it's not nearly as simple as "Bernie supporters are racist".