Some in the liberal media seem upset that Bernie Sanders is not quitting the Democratic race for president. Across the bottom of the USA Today front page on Friday is the headline “‘Bernie Bro’ behavior offends across the board.”
“Offends across the board”? Because Hillary Clinton is a beloved American figure? Reporter Rick Hampson takes every pro-Sanders Internet commenter and makes them a great embarrassment to the Sanders campaign (as if Clintonistas never fight dirty). Hampson began:
They’re the unsanctioned shock troops of Bernie Sanders’ vaunted online army, digital rogues who've plagued Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and embarrassed Sanders' campaign.
“Bernie Bros’’ are the frequently misogynist and occasionally obscene Internet denizens who in posts and tweets have relentlessly derided Clinton (“Shillary,” “Shrillary”) as too old, too compromised and/or too much of a card-carrying female to be president.
Her supporters claim to have been bullied and harassed (“their vaginas are making terrible choices,” read one online comment from a Sanders supporter on a photo of Clinton and New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen) for expressing themselves on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.
After running down these embarrassing “digital rogues,” Hampson then asked the question: where will these Sanders backers go in a general election? “Will those who flamed her turn their fire on Trump or sit on their hands?”
But the demonization continued: “The Bernie Bro, as the type has emerged during the campaign, is a young white man passionately committed to Sanders, but not Sanders' stated belief in political civility and gender equality.”
Now how does USA Today know these online Sanders backers are white? Or male? And why would Hampson buy the notion that a raving socialist candidate who says all of Wall Street is based on fraud and criminality can claim civility as an ideal? But back to the “Bro” profiling, based only on assumptions:
He is, by all accounts, a small minority of Sanders’ estimated online force of 9 million, which populates hundreds of sites on Facebook, Reddit and other platforms.
The Bro lurks in Internet chat rooms, posts on Facebook and tweets abundantly, often anonymously or behind a fake profile.
At least, that’s what most people assume. Investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald has tried to debunk what he regards as the myth of the Bernie Bro, pointing out that 1) some appear to be other than whom they claim to be (and thus could be right-wing or Republican agent provocateurs); 2) that some are women; and 3) that many who complain about them are thin-skinned Clinton partisans.
Among the thin-skinned Clinton partisans is the USA Today editor who claimed in the Page One headline that mocking Hillary as “Shrillary” somehow “offends across the board.”
Hampson then played complaints of sexism from Hillary and – you knew it was coming – the Big Dog of Female Exploitation himself:
Last month, Clinton herself said the Internet provides a place for bullies to say "the most vile, harassing, incredibly mean spirited things" that "they would never say it to somebody's face."
Former president Bill Clinton, stumping in New Hampshire last winter, blasted “vicious trolling and attacks’’ by Sanders’ online supporters “that are literally too profane — often, not to mention, sexist — to repeat.”
But then, the Clintons thought the Starr Report was too profane to repeat – not Clinton’s adulterous sexual activity, just recounting it like it was a negative thing.
And when James Carville and liberal journalists mocked Clinton's female accusers as trailer trash looking for cash, where they embarrassing, offensive, sexist "Clinton Bros"? Where was Hillary then to call out the sexists and the bullies?
