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Friday, September 08, 2017

Bernie and the DNC

In the news: Bernie backers' attacks on Democrats infuriate the party

Prominent Democrats are increasingly riled by attacks from Bernie Sanders' supporters, whose demands for ideological purity are hurting the party ahead of the 2018 midterms and 2020 presidential election, they say.

But it’s not just the outside agitators that Democratic lawmakers, operatives, and activists are annoyed with: They’re tired of what they see as the senator’s hesitance to confront his own backers, either in public or through back channels.

Tensions boiled over recently when a handful of Sanders loyalists bashed freshman Sen. Kamala Harris — a rising star in the party and potential 2020 hopeful — as an establishment tool. Democrats were also rankled that other prominent Sanders allies said support for single-payer health care should be a litmus test for candidates ...


First, it's funny that Bernie's supporters think there should be a litmus test (single-payer health care) for the DNC, because these are the same people who decided that women's reproductive rights should not be a litmus test for Democrats when Bernie supported a pro-life candidate ... Bernie Sanders Defends Campaigning For Anti-Abortion Rights Democrat. Apparently there *can* be litmus tests, but they have to be Bernie's.

Second, I recall very well how creepy and abusive Bernie's supporters were during the primaries before the general election. Here's just one example ...

From Bernie Sanders Supporters, Death Threats Over Delegates

Thrown chairs. Leaked cellphone numbers. Death threats spewed across the Internet. No, this is not the work of Donald J. Trump supporters, some of whom have harassed critics of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. It was angry supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders who were directing their ire at the Nevada Democratic Party — and its chairwoman, Roberta Lange — over a state convention on Saturday that they think was emblematic of a rigged political system ...

I like Bernie and I think he has some good ideas, but he isn't a Democrat and his followers don't have the right to define the DNC. He needs to make that clear to them if he wants to work within our party.

2 Comments:

Blogger Susan said...

You're so smart about these things, Crystal. I didn't pay nearly enough attention to Bernie and the rest of the Dems during the interminable campaign. I was seduced by the Republican circus, which seemed so surreal to me and became more so as time went on--the election being the most surreal of all.

6:20 AM  
Blogger crystal said...

I wasn't smart, just had a lot of free time to read the news ;) I especially remembered that time Bernie's followers got so upset because one of my California Senators - Democrat Barbara Boxer - was there. She got booed and yelled at by Bernie's supporters and she gave them the finger. Here's a news video where she talked about that ... https://youtu.be/6DHER25JZzQ

9:23 AM  

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