Bernie Sanders’s most vitriolic supporters really test the meaning of the word ‘progressive’ [View all]

[MrWendel]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/10/bernie-sanderss-most-vitriolic-supporters-really-test-the-meaning-of-the-word-progressive/

By Janell Ross



Sen. Bernie Sanders had a heck of a day Tuesday.

The presidential candidate scored an unexpected and significant victory in Michigan, adding real-world evidence to his campaign's claims that he can continue all the way to the Democratic National Convention. Sanders posted a two-point win, narrowly carrying the kind of state he has lacked -- a big one with a sizable black population. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, still beat him 2 to 1 among black voters. But Sanders earned a larger share of the black vote in Michigan than he has in any preceding state.

That's the good news for him. This post will admittedly not be about that. So, Sanders voters -- particularly those keyboard gangsters, frequent commenters and tweeters, and those convinced of a grand media conspiracy to end the Sanders campaign -- prepare. This piece is about another aspect of the Sanders campaign and some of you.

Something -- we cannot say what -- inside certain corners of the ostensibly progressive and overwhelmingly white ranks of Sanders voters is amiss. There is a pattern -- demonstrated time and time again -- by both Sanders and some Sanders supporters of racial cluelessness, an infantilizing and almost colonial kind of condescension about policy, and a tendency to react to anyone who points that out by, well, supplying even more evidence of racial tone-deafness, self-ordained intellectual superiority and sometimes completely open displays of various forms of outright bigotry.

That's right. We said it. In trying to make their case, Sanders, and far more often some subset of his supporters, behave in ways that are difficult to square with their claims to progressive politics and building a more inclusive and egalitarian society.

One final note before we get to a few examples of the behavior characterized above: The portion of Sanders supporters who read the paragraphs above and began to compose their tweets, emails and below-story comments, we are aware of that Intercept piece that argues that the "Berniebro" and his alleged public misbehavior is media-generated fiction.

But the emails, Twitter messages and comments I have received tell a different story. They use a variety of curse words and insults typically reserved for women. More than one has suggested that I deserve to become the victim of a sex crime. They critique the "objectivity" of what is clearly political analysis based on polling data and other facts; they insist that black voters are dumb or that I have a personal obligation to help black voters see the error of their Clinton-voting ways. It is vile. And it stands in sharp contrast to the claim that no portion of Sanders supporters are angry people who sometimes engage in or embrace bigotry.

(More in link)