Saturday, March 7, 2020

I Have No Patience For These Snowflakes

Color me surprised, and yet not surprised, at this absurd focus on "mean" Bernie Bro tweets and comments.  This is a non-story.  The corporate media has a difficult time going after Sanders on policy because his policy positions are very popular.  And he's been consistent.  He wasn't against the war and supporting gay rights when it was popular only.  He did it when it was hard.  He hasn't been fighting to protect social security and the environment only recently when it was more politically popular.  He did it when it wasn't easy, when triangulators like Biden and Clinton wanted to be thought of as moderates and friends to Republicans, and they wanted the adulation of the corporate media.

So they focus on the fact that some people online are mean.  This is not news.  Everyone knows what the comment section of Youtube looks like.  Everyone knows how toxic it can be.  It's not for everyone.  If you don't want to be subject to that I understand.  But stay out of the public discourse on politics.  Don't criticize Trump.  There are people that like him that will call you names, attack you.  That's life.  If you want to get in the ring and throw punches expect punches to come back.  Some will be below the belt.

It is unbelievable to me how much time Warren and Maddow spend on this topic in her interview after ending her campaign.  Of course publishing people's home addresses and phone numbers is terrible.  But this kind of thing is going to happen to people on Bernie's side, to people on Warren's side.  I look at it a lot like late hits you see in the UFC.  What Jorge Masvidal did to Ben Askren was horrible.  But it's going to happen.  If you don't like it don't get involved in the fight business (I wouldn't.)

What is another level of absurdity are these people who refuse to vote for Sanders because of the mean tweeting Bernie Bros.  Here's a Biden surrogate who says she will not vote for Sanders over Trump if he's the nominee.  She is a super delegate.  She had a "horrible" experience in her mind.  She tweeted an edited video of Bernie saying nice things about the subway system in the Soviet Union, how the metro stations are beautiful (which is absolutely true).  His criticisms were taken out, so it makes him appear to be an apologist for Soviet communism.  Glenn Greenwald offered a modest tweet in rebuttal.  This led to Sanders supporters attacking her.  They called her a racist and a bitch.  Oooohhh.  It was so bad she felt she needed to resign her position as treasurer of the Pennsylvania Young Democrats.  Vanity Fair explains how much of a victim she is with this article.  The subtitle indicates that she "didn't survive with her job."  She resigned, her job was not taken from her, and it was an unpaid volunteer position.

Again, I'm not condoning what was said to her, it is wrong.  But we do have free speech in the US.  Bernie cannot prevent this.  A lot of Bernie supporters are angry people I suppose.  Many are probably outsiders.  A lot of us think Bernie gets unfair treatment in the media and this is aggravating.  Some overreact.

But people are dying from lack of health care.  The planet is on track to not be habitable for humans for large areas of the globe.  There are so many issues that are far more important than the mean tweets coming from Bernie Bros.  The corporate media is making this an issue because it's hard to get after Bernie on policy.

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