As President Trump recently pointed out, there’s a “feud brewing” between radical progressive Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) — and members of the media don’t appear to be trying very hard to conceal their bias in the internecine quarrel.
“Bernie Sander’s volunteers are trashing Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren,” Trump tweeted last week. “Everybody knows her campaign is dead and want her potential voters. Mini Mike B is also trying, but getting tiny crowds which are all leaving fast. Elizabeth is very angry at Bernie. Do I see a feud brewing?”
Bernie Sander’s volunteers are trashing Elizabeth “Pocahontus” Warren. Everybody knows her campaign is dead and want her potential voters. Mini Mike B is also trying, but getting tiny crowds which are all leaving fast. Elizabeth is very angry at Bernie. Do I see a feud brewing?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 13, 2020
A feud is indeed “brewing” — and now boiling over — and many on the left, including CNN debate moderators and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, are jumping in to take shots at Sanders.
Following a glaring example of CNN making painfully clear to its viewers during a primary debate that they believe Warren over Sanders regarding his alleged “sexist” comments about the 2020 election, NBC News’ “THINK” section got in on the trashing Bernie action, publishing a piece that compares Sanders’ supporters to the worst of the worst, at least according to mainstream media standards.
In the piece, published over the weekend, NBC News THINK contributor Kurt Bardella gave Warren an assist by taking full aim at “(some) supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders,” who, Bardella suggests, are racist, sexist bullies almost indistinguishable in their “tone and tactics” from the scum of the earth — that’s right, Trump supporters …
On the morning after Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate, the#NeverWarren hashtag starting trending as (some) supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders went on the attack (and the media amplified those attacks). The anti-Sen. Elizabeth Warren missives took many forms, including a small snake emojis mob. But the aggressive tenor was familiar. …
The attacks against Warren come from the same corners of social media that disparage Democrats (like myself) as being “puppets,” “centrist,” “anti-Semitic, and “ageist” for having the audacity to question or scrutinize their chosen leader. People of color and women who dare to disagree with Sanders’ political assertions have often borne the brunt of this abuse.
This hyper-vocal faction of Sanders supporters — colloquially known as “Bernie Bros” — never went away after the 2016 presidential election. In my personal experience, these bros are almost overwhelmingly white men. And they share, like Trump’s ardent supporters, a desire to “put me in my place.” Disturbingly, there are times where you really can’t distinguish between the tone and tactics of Trump’s #MAGA nation and Sanders’ “Bros.”
Clinton heaped on more fuel to the already party unity-damaging fire in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter published Tuesday. Asked if she stood by her statements trashing Sanders in the new Hulu docuseries “Hillary,” the former Secretary of State doubled down.
“In the doc, you’re brutally honest on Sanders: ‘He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it,’” THR asked Clinton. “That assessment still hold?”
“Yes, it does,” said Clinton.
Like Bardella, Clinton also took aim at Sanders’ supporters. “[I]t’s not only him, it’s the culture around him,” she said. “It’s his leadership team. It’s his prominent supporters. It’s his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women.”
“And I really hope people are paying attention to that because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, [he] seems to really be very much supporting it,” Clinton added. “And I don’t think we want to go down that road again where you campaign by insult and attack and maybe you try to get some distance from it, but you either don’t know what your campaign and supporters are doing or you’re just giving them a wink and you want them to go after Kamala [Harris] or after Elizabeth [Warren]. I think that that’s a pattern that people should take into account when they make their decisions.”
Sanders has since responded by taking the high road. “My focus today is on a monumental moment in American history: The impeachment trial of Donald Trump,” said Bernie in a statement Tuesday. “Together, we are going to go forward and defeat the most dangerous president in American history.”