[h=1]Opinion: Being rude and noxious won’t get your candidate elected.[/h]
[h=2]This goes for offline as well as on.[/h]
I’m going to preface this with the disclosure that
I supported Bernie Sanders in 2016, voted for him in the primary, and that I would never, ever boo him. I’ll also add that I wasn’t active on Twitter in 2015–2016 (I was in grad school). So imagine my shock and surprise, in discovering Rose Twitter (🌹), that many people in that subgroup are some of the worst kinds of social media bullies.
I wasn’t going to publish this op-ed. And I
absolutely stress that this is an
opinion piece. But the cyber bullying increased exponentially. It was time to push the big green button.
...
What this article doesn’t mention, however, was that supporters of Bernie Sanders did heckle and boo at least one candidate in California on 16 November 2019: Pete Buttigieg. Why? He uttered the phrase “
Medicare For All Who Want It”, his version of
a pathway to Medicare For All (a plan that even Elizabeth Warren has
recently more or less adopted).
For the unfamiliar,
Buttigieg’s healthcare plan distinguishes itself from that of Sanders’ by not forcing anything upon any American nor taking anything away, but rather making Medicare a viable option for everyone, including the likes of me who has little-to-no income, with the help of subsidies. “Medicare For All Who Want It”, not “Medicare For All Whether You Want It Or Not.”
During Pete Buttigieg’s speech, he talked about
Medicare For All Who Want It. The moment he did so, Sanders supporters booed him enough for the moderator of the event to take the microphone from Buttigieg and yell at the Sanders supporters something along the lines of “Stop! You guys stop it now!” as if this was a grade school assembly and the organizer was the principal.
This came after the Sanders supporters, at the same event, repeatedly crowded around the Buttigieg supporters (causing the Buttigieg supporters to relocate, only to be crowded again by Sanders supporters). The Sanders supporters attempted to drown out supporters of Buttigieg with competing chants. This all happened several times over the course of the day.
...
At some point in 2016, I’d changed my political affiliation on Facebook to Democratic Socialist and followed various DemSoc pages. In early 2019, I began to admit to myself just how terrible some fellow Bernie supporters behaved online (namely Twitter), virtually indistinguishable from that of Trump supporters: “my way or the highway” attitudes not unlike those of fascists, sexist and homophobic language, “Bernie or Bust” absolutism, and general rudeness. After several weeks of internalized existential chaos, I unfollowed those DemSoc pages and changed my political affiliation on Facebook back to, simply, Democrat. (Facebook official.)
Those behaviors that these Bernie supporters exhibited online were wholly against my ideals that include, most of all, acceptance of those different from myself.
Now, this terrible behavior has manifested itself in the real world. The reality of the situation is that, in general, Sanders supporters have not only developed a shared, hive-mind-like behavior towards anyone not-Sanders (or, more accurate, anyone who is a political threat to Sanders), but they have been given license to behave this way from
the media that they consume. If this sounds familiar, you may have read about the connection between
Trump voters and Fox News.
What this anger, violence, and sheer hatred of The Other comes down to is learned behavior. As someone who was once a part of the Sanders crowd, even in a small way, I understand this mindset. It’s basically being indoctrinated. The horrible truth is that the Sanders supporters
have been at this for two years at the very least and show absolutely no signs of stopping.
...
The Sanders supporters are attacking Buttigieg for, of all things, being white, and having white supporters. This is confusing, because Sanders too is white, as are many of Sanders’ supporters. What’s also confusing is why Sanders supporters fail to realize that Buttigieg has a
diverse campaign staff (you can do your own research on that; they’re on Twitter.) He also has extremely diverse grassroots support (
look at photos of gatherings like watch parties and canvassing; it’s honestly not hard.) Even the polls reflect PoC support (see below figures; compare to other candidates who are not Biden). But none of this fits
the opposition’s narrative, so they ignore facts. And they create their own…
alternative facts.
...
On 18 November 2019, the bullying intensified when Twitter users who support other candidates caught wind of an innocuous video of Buttigieg supporters dancing to the Pete For America campaign song, moves the volunteers and interns came up with themselves, limited to hand gestures to be at least in some way inclusive to the disability community (or maybe people like me, whose back has betrayed them — though I have yet to dance it out like
these happy folks).
https://medium.com/@allison.grunwal...-wont-get-your-candidate-elected-29f2c372d584