Your next 2020 Democratic presidential primary thread: Now we're serious

y'all seem more concerned about putting down these unwashed heathens who don't understand politics

Not understanding politics is not understanding politics, washed or not.

A stranger posting a snake emoji on your TL should never be called "abuse."

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z),

would you call it "asshole groupthink"

I'd call it twitter

Nobody is okay itt with “toxic abusers.”

Some of us think they shouldn’t be inflated to such importance that it costs us another warmonger who wants to slow-walk climate issues in the White House

Who fucking cares if some people online are assholes? Get offline! Read the platforms, study the issues, watch the debates if necessary....

You know what happens to those people after the election? Nothing! They aren’t going anywhere, and neither are they going to the White House, and neither will they have fuck all to do with addressing the multiple, actual crises we’re facing

ok, so how about the Bernie supporters that tweeted en masse at Hillary Clinton calling her a "bitch", or the Bernie voters who left voicemails on Roberta Lange's phone in 2016 calling her a bitch and a cunt?

this isn't imagined abuse. it's possible to acknowledge it and also say Bernie isn't to blame for it and has actively spoken out against it, because unlike Trump, he has.

this isn't difficult. and bashing EW for bringing it up is nagl

fucking bitches, man, what can I tell you

IT'S A JOKE

"shrug off the abuse, guys, we got more important things than you being doxxed and being left harassing voicemails"

things that have also happened to Sanders surrogates iirc

this is another one of those cases where people's silos and channels absolutely determine their experience to the point that I'm not sure there's any way to gauge truthfully how 'real' a problem this is; it's clearly real for some people and they experience it and they complain about it; on the other than, I myself have only ever seen one instance of this in my circle peoples. I'm sure there are many circles like this and some of them experienced this worse than others.

like i'm pretty sure EW's comments aren't going to lead voters to flock to Biden en masse. if you noticed the polls, Sanders is the second choice for most EW voters, but probably not by a large enough margin to where it won't benefit Bernie and Biden almost equally.

however...now that it's mostly a two person race (and Gabbard, lol), maybe Bernie has some more tricks. still think the aggregators are overreacting a bit to this week.

There is a major class divide between Sanders and Warren supporters that is almost always overlooked in these endless arguments.

It’s pretty simple: it’s hard to feel charitable towards high-handed pleas for civility from people who don’t have to worry about medical bills or keeping the lights on. If you can’t see this, then you are the enemy afaic

hey here's a thought - as a guy who actually took a 6k paycut due to some of the abusive behavior at his job, I don't like anybody being abused, and call it out wherever I see it.

instead of denying it's there and being flippant or accusing people who bring it up of sabotaging the election.

I’m realllllly fucking sick of it

but you know, I did have to block three sanders supporters just because I didn't like their attitudes. and I haven't had to do that with supporters of anyone else, even the one person I know who support(s)(ed) Tulsi. He had a reasoned calm statement about why he supported her; I think he's wrong; but he didn't go around getting in arguments. and these other guys did.

Maybe we can litigate online bullies in December and in the meantime do what’s necessary to keep Joe fucking Biden from winning the nomination?

Warren supporters are...rich?

huh, guess I should tell my Warren supporter friends they have money all this time and have never known it

xpost fuck off, dude. I'm voting for Bernie. can you not hold two ideas in your head at once?

I try to keep it posi and often call out fellow bernie bros in real life for their myopic vitriol (particularly re: Warren). I absolutely think it's fair for Warren to bring up all the online abuse but if that's her reason for not endorsing Bernie when the other options are Joe fucking Biden or Trump then she's a selfish asshole.

just casually throwing out there that most Sanders supporters are not white men

they are 'elites' who could afford to go to college (nevermind they are broke forever) (xposts)

Bernie voters who left voicemails on Roberta Lange's phone in 2016

This is harassment and unconscionable, yes. As Simon notes, also happens to Bernie surrogates.

What happens on a public Twitter feed is very different.

so we've now moved from "hmm she hasn't endorsed Bernie yet, not sure if she will" to "lol she won't endorse Bernie cos someone posted a snake on her twitter page, what a selfish asshole".

xpost it's not real if it's on Twitter!

Warren supporters are...rich?

Relatively speaking, yes - Warren voters were second only to Harris voters in incomes above $100k

nagl to basically tar every Warren voter with that brush.

my feed is full of Warren voters. Most of my female friends, my own mother, all Warren voters. not a damn one of them are rich. actually, most of them are paycheck to paycheck, and some are not doing well at all.

a few of them have even called out Sanders supporters for their toxicity. thanks for the suggestion that they're just coddled bitches guys!

Wait til you hear about poor Trump voters!

Fuck you dude

The Warren and Sanders supporters I know are mostly in the low-to-middle income range, with no real economic difference between them. But I'm sure that overall Warren supporters were more affluent, because her base was small and mostly college educated.

But again, this is the same, "The world sucks so I'm allowed to be a jerk" argument, which is just, like, not true. Those two things aren't connected.

xxxps Neanderthal way harsh?

Anyway, yes, speaking of compartmentalization I can hold the idea that some Bernie Sanders supporters are assholes, and at the same time know with utter certainty that in the big picture a year from now this is all absolutely meaningless.

But what if Bernie wins and appoints JFL6969 Secretary of The Interior!

Xpost Just call Warren supporters snowflakes while you're at it

xps - I very clearly said "if that's her reason." That's the assumption Hadrian is making in their argument. I suspect there's a good chance they're wrong in that assumption, a lot can happen in the next few days and who knows if she's not just taking another angle she thinks will put her in a better position to fight for progressive goals. But if it's the case, yeah, she's a selfish asshole.

Xpxost so you're asking for... civility?

How dare you

Yeah, I am.

I try to be civil with others, and when they are not with me I also try not to react by staying up all night banging my head against a wall. I need my brain for tomorrow.

Well, let's say you just don't buy it, you don't think anyone should care about people being assholes as long as there are worse things in the world. OK. But then you see this small but potentially useful base of Warren voters, 8-10 percent of the primary electorate, which is probably enough to make a difference in this race. And let's say that that 8-10 percent actually does notice and care when people are being assholes, and they're not going to be super receptive to your guy as long as he's surrounded by a buzzing cloud of assholes. And in your heart you think, "Fuck off, who cares about the Asshole Cloud, we're fighting a war here." That's fine, think it. But also maybe, just strategically, not because you really mean it or believe it, you could walk over and say, "Hey, sorry about the Asshole Cloud. Those guys are jerks! But we're not all like that. Have you thought about Bernie?"

IF YOU DO THAT YOU CONDONE MULTIPLE NOTORIOUS GENOCIDES BEEP BLOOP B ERNIE SANDERS BORP

xp thanks for the tip, I've been doing that for months

this is about political calculus on a candidate's part, at the 11th hour of the most important election of our lifetimes

I'm not new here, it's just that all of the horrible things I hear about berniebros I get secondhand from people here complaining about it. I agree with Bernie's platform and so do most of you and so do some assholes on twitter. Everyone wants Trump out, so what's to be done? Do we say, "yeah I'll vote for Bernie in the general, but just look at how stupid and offensive his supporters are. I can't be aligned with that lot"? I'd rather just jump on the Bernie bandwagon and hope for the best.

And let's say that that 8-10 percent actually does notice and care when people are being assholes, and they're not going to be super receptive to your guy as long as he's surrounded by a buzzing cloud of assholes.

No one who would vote for Biden because of snake emojis would have voted for Sanders in a heads-up match.

I regularly see Bernie ppl imploring others to be nice to other candidates' supporters (esp on Reddit). (xps)

This isn't Warren-Sanders where you can argue they stood for the same fundamental policy so feeling better about one or the other can sway you.

Worth a glance:

1/ I run Media Matters (a media watchdog organization). I want to say something about @ewarren's departure from the race. Horserace, polls, nomination aspect aside aside, we will all feel the effects of Warren's absence from the race, whether you realize it or not. Here's why...

— Angelo Carusone (@GoAngelo) March 6, 2020

Yeah, that's kind of the whole thing. xp

Anyway, yes, speaking of compartmentalization I can hold the idea that some Bernie Sanders supporters are assholes, and at the same time know with utter certainty that in the big picture a year from now this is all absolutely meaningless.

Well, actually no, it won't be meaningless a year from now. A campaign that purports to be a movement will be pretty limited at movement-building, and coalition-building, if it becomes chiefly known for its assholes. The fact that the assholes are concentrated online hardly diminishes this concern, since that's where much movement building actually occurs these days.

So yes, the phenomenon of Sanders-related assholery and bullying is worthy of examination and (for those who care about the candidate and the movement) self-criticism, precisely in order to become more effective.

The media certainly doesn't have anything to do with the narrative - like using tweets from Trump supporters to show what meanies Sanders people are online. That didn't happen over the last month, definitely.

It's an uncontrollable situation - precisely because Twitter is an open, public platform.

if it becomes chiefly known for its assholes

lollll yes Bernie's senate staffers have been known for decades for being SUPER ASSHOLES, they're at the their very douchiest I understand when advocating for more public housing

some straight lunacy up in here

Given that Sanders still has extremely high likability ratings for a politician (for a SOCIALISSSSST politician), I don't think it's particularly a worry, particularly since the 'next Bernie' is unlikely to be an old white guy.

if only Bernie Sanders was better at building movements hmmm

current best conspiracy aside from the weird Russian false time thing where Charlemagne never existed - the DNC is using Biden to lock up the nomination then they'll make him resign for health reasons just before the convention in order to put a better candidate in

twitter psychos don't help anything but...

No one who would vote for Biden because of snake emojis would have voted for Sanders in a heads-up match

is pretty much true.