Bernie Sanders' Fans Can't be Allowed to Poison another Democratic Primary

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/bernie-sanders-fans-can-t-be-allowed-poison-another-democratic-ncna953976

I'm hardly the only political observer who blames Hillary Clinton's general election defeat to Donald Trump in part on personal attacks on Clinton first made by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and his backers. Those attacks from her left laid the groundwork for copycat attacks lobbed by Donald Trump — and, in the process, helped hand the Supreme Court to the right-wing for a generation.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself who said what.

1. "I know the guys at Goldman Sachs. They have total, total, total control over him. Just like they have total control over Hillary Clinton."
2. "I don't think you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC."
3. "Do I have a problem when a sitting secretary of State and a foundation run by her husband collects many, many dollars from foreign governments — governments which are dictatorships? Yeah, I do have a problem with that. Yeah, I do."
4. "The Clintons have spent decades as insiders lining their own pockets and taking care of donors instead of the American people. It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history."
5. “I think [superpredators] was a terrible thing to say."
6. "Because [superpredators] was a racist term, and everybody knew it was a racist term."

The answers: 1. Trump; 2. Sanders; 3. Sanders; 4. Trump; 5. Trump; and 6. Sanders.

And now, though the 2018 Democratic presidential primary has only just begun, those same long knives — mostly courtesy of supporters of Sanders' prospective candidacy — are out for outgoing Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-Texas, charging that he is not a true progressive.

The reason for these pre-emptive attacks (which has the markings of a coordinated effort) in a spate of news and opinion articles in a variety of publications, is obvious enough: After losing the Texas Senate race to incumbent Ted Cruz, O'Rourke nonetheless has shot to the top in Democratic primary polls since Election Day, overshadowing both Sanders and another left-wing favorite, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

In politics you shoot up, not down.

Berniecrats seem determined to dust off the same destructive playbook this time around, even though the attacks against O'Rourke are flimsy and misleading. O'Rourke unseated a conservative Democrat in a primary and never tacked right in an election in deep red Texas. He has run in favor of federal legislation legalizing marijuana and the impeachment of President Trump, and although he fails their litmus test on free college tuition, their claims that his support is weak for Medicare-for-all don't match his record: As a Senate candidate, he said he would vote for it.

Bernie supporters have made questionable claims about contributions to O'Rourke from the oil and gas industry, as well as his support for certain Republican-sponsored House bills — but neglect to mention that the oil and gas money came mostly from low-level industry employees (hundreds of thousands of Texans are employed by the industry), and that O'Rourke broke ranks with his party less than the average Democrat.

The real problem for Sanders' supporters seems to be that this "Kennedyesque golden boy," as one has derided O'Rourke, seems perfectly poised to steal Sanders' thunder among millennials and white liberals with his fresh energy and personal charisma. Thus, it's not enough to disagree with O'Rourke; his persona and reputation must be dragged through the mud.

Democrats should greet this early maneuvering by Sanders' supporters with alarm. If Democrats cannot show such tactics — which will be used against any non-Sanders candidate, because no one can get to the left of a socialist — for what they are, they ignore them at their own peril.

Failing to end this internecine warfare will mean that all members of the Democratic Party running for its presidential nomination will face months of minuscule ideological litmus tests turned into character assassinations. The narrative, driven by the far left and lapped up by the press, will likely result in a nomination fight that could well devolve into the kind of pointless factionalism that will only help Republicans.

We've seen this movie before: Sanders' assault on Clinton's progressive credentials were pernicious in large part because they were not about policy disputes at all, but rather intended to falsely impugn Hillary's character and integrity.

The atmosphere online was even more toxic: Pro-Bernie message boards lit up with a montage of Hillary hate. Here, Hillary was a "corporate whore," a likely criminal in the email case and the cheating mastermind of a rigged primary.

No wonder "Lock her up!" later became so resonant.

In 2016, I ran a pro-Hillary SuperPAC which attempted to defend the candidate against false attacks, many of which came from or originated to her left. Though they were hardly in charge of our messaging, it was made very clear to us by our allies at her campaign headquarters that any efforts on our part to push back against the left-wing anti-Clinton brigades were unwelcome assistance; they feared alienating Sanders' voters.

That head-in-the-sand posture was ultimately self-defeating.

Today, Democrats are rightly laser-focused on picking a winner in 2020, and the stakes are just too high to let bad faith actors — whose real aim is to smear Democrats as no different than Republicans — stage inter-party schisms. If Sanders decides to run again this time, he should focus on policy and eschew character attacks on Democrats — and admonish his supporters to do the same. Otherwise, they put the core values we all share at risk, yet again.

David Brock

David Brock is the author of five political books, including "Killing the Messenger" (Hachette, 2015) and "Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" (Crown, March 2002). He founded Media Matters for America in 2004 and then American Bridge 21st Century in 2011.

So what do you guys think? Was it Sanders/Bernie Bros fault that Clinton loss?

If we want to go down the realm of what ifs, maybe we should have elected Mitt Romney in 2012 so Donald Trump wouldn’t have been in a position to get the Republican nomination in 2016. That would have done a lot more to prevent us having Trump as president than anything Bernie Sanders or his supporters said in 2016...

To be serious, there’s a pretty good chance that if the media released the Access Hollywood recording during the Republican primaries instead of saving it as an October surprise then either Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz would be president right now. Back then, the GOP would have ran him out of the primaries but a month before the election they had no choice but to stay behind him unless they wanted to hand the presidency to Clinton. At least in my opinion.

Elections are won in the margins. It is possible, and even likely, for many factors to be "the cause" for a win or a loss in an election because any factor that results in a swing greater than the margin of loss/victory in enough states to cause a different result can correctly be labeled as a cause. It is likely that such Democrats staying home was one such reason, but it's hardly the only reason.

@Damedius: Clinton was a terrible candidate. She lost because her last name, justified or not, is synonymous with corruption and TBH a lot of blue collared union Dems in WI, MI, and PA are not going to vote for a woman in a pants suit.

I wanted Bernie but I didn’t think Hillary stole anything from him. I’d prefer he doesn’t run again. I want a young candidate like Beto.

No, Bernie made great points about the scumbag Hilary. She was such an awful candidate by any standard. She was weak, her husband cheated on her like 100 times, getting bjs in the White House. If she dumped her husband's ass back in 98, she'd have more credibility. Trust me, the ONLY reason trump didn't go all in on attacking Hilary for her husband's cheating is because trump was losing support with women.

The clinton family was a mess and the attacks made on her were so easy because of who she was. Face it, the only one to blame for trump is the dumpster fire that is the democratic party. Such a weak candidate like Hilary nearly lost to an upstart in Bernie Sanders. That was in the democratic primaries FFS!! It was unprecedented, and it took the main stream media conspiring together with the DNC to get Hilary as the primary candidate just to beat 80 year old bernie. If she could barely hang on in her own party, what made people think she'd do well against trump? The warning flags were there all along.

Whoever wins the democratic nomination SHOULD go through a trial a fire and I'm happy Bernie and others like him are asking the hard questions.

Talk like this is dangerous because it stops people from thinking it's OK to vote for their ideal candidate, like we should settle. I didn't want Clinton or Trump to win so I voted for neither of them.

People should feel free to vote for whomever they want.

My personal feelings are that the Democrats did this to themselves by backing Clinton; every Clinton supporter would have voted Democrat no matter what, but not every Sanders supporter would vote Democrat if Sanders wasn't an option, and that's exactly what happened.

Clinton should have dropped out instead of acting like she was entitled to stay. I think the loud noise of feminists gave her a false idea of how little support she actually had.

One of the many reasons I abandoned the Democrats is because they were flirting with socialism and sympathizing with Islam, a religion that destroyed my country of origin.

Socialists, communists & nazi's are criminals, they're worst elements of society.

Why don't you tell us, you created the thread and posted another 'Wall O' Text.' Offer your own insight.

@luzarius: the conservatives are just as big communists than the Democrats, prove me wronf

I'm trying to understand this. Are you saying poor conservatives rely on welfare too much or something?

@luzarius: the conservatives support big government, they're against free market, the love to give anti free market protections to corporations. I don't care if you're rich or poor, you shouldn't be getting welfare subsidies and handouts period. The majority of welfare is going to the rich.

Bernie was always a better candidate than Hillary. Too bad many people in the US don't have even a rudimentary understanding of social democracy, and automatically conflate it with communism.

As someone said the other day in a different thread, Bernie would probably have won if he was running somewhere like Canada or Europe. I don't see somebody like him ever being elected POTUS though.

Hmm, I agree with you on these points. Too bad there isn't a like button or something.

I propose that you're thinking about this from the wrong angle.

We have a system in place for voting for ideal candidates - the primaries. Once the general rolls around, it's highly likely that you'll have to make concessions as coalition building is done earlier (through the primary process and events leading up to it). This is one of the fundamental differences between the US and the proportional representation systems of Europe - coalition building is primarily done prior to the election rather than after.

By not voting for either candidate in the general election, all that's really occurred is that you've abdicated your voice at that level. If you truly believe the candidates/parties are the same in that case then that's one thing, but I'd argue that to do that because your ideal candidate isn't present is a self-destructive decision.

@mattbbpl: No I vote third party. I still vote though.

Lol, Damedius who's a Trump lover posts this thread, why?

Absolutely, they did. That article was spot on. Sanders mainly attacked Clinton on the account that she was a rich white lady, with a lot of financial and political connections. His supporters acted no different than Trump supporters. Trump even stole a lot of his talking points once Sanders conceded, in an attempt to bring some Bernouts into the fold.

This is exactly why 3rd parties have a unique place in the US during an election. Read: Duverger's Law. I am more passionate about candidates in the primaries than the election because of this.

Also, I absolutely second this portion: 'By not voting for either candidate in the general election, all that's really occurred is that you've abdicated your voice at that level.'

It's always hilarious when the moronic corporatists are like "stop poisoning OUR primary by holding our shitty corrupt candidate accountable, and pointing out there crappy voting record!!!!!!! it's not fair to use our own corruption against us!!!!!!" dumbasses...

I think decades of neoliberalism is what made Hillary Clinton lose the election.

People are fed up with the same crony capitalism and shills in DC. They're fed up with the useless nonstop wars. They're fed up of people's civil rights being attacked. With the internet, that's all going to accelerate much quicker. Something radical is going to happen and we're all just going to have to ride that wave.