Last night on Twitter I said a few things about the “Bernie Bro” phenomenon — the hostility and abuse that folks have been getting recently in online spaces when they express criticism of Bernie Sanders or his candidacy for president — and I want to say a bit more about it today.
My own experience, and it’s shared by a lot of other people, is that this is real, and — in this campaign cycle — distinctive. I get more crap, and more aggressive crap, when I say something negative about Sanders (who I’m likely voting for) than I do when I say something negative about Clinton, and I’m more likely to have my motives questioned when I do. When I tweeted a few things a week or so back about Sanders’ ill-phrased Supreme Court tweet, a bunch of people showed up to tell me exactly what was wrong with my tweets, my character, and my intellect, including several with high follower counts who I ordinarily don’t interact with.
So why is this happening? I have a hunch.
In 2000, there was a tremendous amount of animosity between Gore supporters and Nader supporters, with a huge amount of vitriol being expressed on both sides. Same thing with Clinton and Obama in 2008 — lots of ugliness, lots of anger flowing in both directions. This cycle there’s some of that coming from the Clinton camp, but it’s not not as much as is coming from Sanders supporters.
To put it another way, what’s weird is less what Bernie’s people are doing than what Hillary’s people (mostly) aren’t.
If you look at Nader 2000, Gore 2000, Clinton 2008, and Obama 2008, one common factor, absent in Clinton 2016, leaps out: They all thought they were the underdog. They all thought they had a shot to change the world, and they all thought they were getting screwed out of that shot by the system and their opponents. Nader was running a third-party campaign in a country where the major parties conspire to keep third parties down. Gore’s people were scared that Nader was going to tank the election for them. Clinton was battling to be the first woman president, facing all the misogyny that went with that, and Obama was in the same boat with regard to race. In each of those cases, for the supporters of each of those candidates, victory was close enough to taste, and the prospect of defeat was too bitter to bear.
Which brings us to 2016.
For Clinton, there’s far less cause for anxiety than there was in 2008. She entered the race as a huge front-runner, and she still holds that position. She’s got more experience in both campaigning and governing, a much bigger advantage in cash and endorsements, and a far weaker Republican field to contend with if she makes it to November. She is, by just about any analysis, the clear favorite to win both the Democratic nomination and the presidency. Bernie Sanders’ campaign, on the other hand, is right where all the others were in 2000 and 2008. He’s underfunded. He’s widely reviled or dismissed by powerful forces in the media and his own party. He’s fighting an uphill battle against the DNC and Wall Street. And as the country’s potential first Jewish president, he’s facing no small amount of ugly bigotry along the way.
Sanders’ supporters see victory as almost within their grasp, and a lot of them think that if he loses it’ll be because the presidency was stolen from him. They’re simultaneously ecstatic and terrified.
And sometimes — as we saw eight years ago and eight years before that — people in that frame of mind wind up freaking out and doing stupid and obnoxious things.
Not all of Sanders’ supporters are acting like jerks, of course. Most of them, the huge majority, aren’t. But some of them are. Enough of them to be a problem.
Demographics play a role in this as well. Sanders’ support skews young, which means there are more of his partisans in the social media spaces where the worst of this kind of obnoxiousness tends to take place. The most vocal jerks among his supporters also include quite a few white men who are happy to deploy racist and misogynist attacks against those they disagree with.
It’d be a mistake, though, to attribute the obnoxiousness of Sanders’ worst followers purely to the demographics of his base. Yes, Sanders’ support skews white and male, but Clinton still has enough of a lead nationally that in raw numbers, the two candidates are running pretty much even among men and among white voters.
Sanders presumably leads among people who are both white and male, and even more so among young white men, but those differences aren’t staggering — Clinton has plenty of young white men in her camp, and it’s not just (though it is disproportionately) young white men who are engaging in this behavior. My strong suspicion is that if the underlying dynamics of the race change — if Sanders, say, wins Iowa and New Hampshire and then goes on to pull out a third straight victory in Nevada — we’ll see the vitriol from his camp decline and that of the Clinton camp rise, even if their supporters’ demographic skews stay pretty similar.
• • •
When I talked about this stuff on Twitter last night, one of the most interesting responses I got — and I got it from several people — was the argument that this stuff shouldn’t matter in the election, because people shouldn’t be basing their votes on which campaign has the worst supporters. This struck me as wrongheaded in a few different ways.
First, there are reasons to talk about this stuff other than its horse-race impact. If it’s true — and I believe it is — that Sanders’ supporters are disproportionately abusive in online settings, that’s not just a problem for Sanders. It’s a problem for the people who are being targeted, and Sanders supporters may be in a better position than others to assist them. Those of us who support Sanders’ campaign can help address this problem, and if we can, we should.
And even if we think people shouldn’t change their votes on the basis of the actions of online jerkery, elections aren’t determined by how people should vote. They’re determined by how people do vote, and whether they vote at all. And if people’s experiences online make it less appealing to be a Sanders supporter, less comfortable to associate with that campaign, that’s got the potential to cost him votes. Even if people don’t jump ship to Clinton because of it, some may stay home, or volunteer less, or opt out of discussing their views with their friends. The Sanders campaign is a grassroots campaign, and grassroots campaigns need all the enthusiasm they can get.
I’m seeing far too many people spending far too much energy trying to convince folks that their experiences with Sanders supporters online aren’t real, or aren’t important, or shouldn’t be discussed. Nobody’s going to vote for Bernie because someone tells them they’re wrong to be angry about this stuff, or that they’re lying about it, or they’re stupid if they let it affect their vote.
That’s not how you build a movement. That’s not how you make a revolution.
8 comments
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January 30, 2016 at 3:58 pm
dengre (@denngree)
Interesting.
Another factor may be that the Sanders campaign is focused on white males: bringing them back as Democratic voters or as first time voters. His campaign staff has been very open about this strategy and Bernie Sanders has been talking about white voter outreach as one of his strengths for years. It has worked very well for him in Vermont after all.
The downside to this is that a strategy that focuses on white males as the priority can have blow-back with the Obama coalition. And when folks question this strategy, many white males react harshly to the criticism. I think that Bernie makes these white men feel important again, while in the Obama coalition they were just one group among many. Any criticism of Bernie makes them feel less important and so the lash out.
White males are members of the minority sex of the minority race on the planet. I don’t think we adapt well to change, especially change where we lose control and dominance. It leads to fear. And that fear is animating support for Bernie and the GOP front-runners. It is a sub-theme of this election cycle.
I think fear is the motivator for the bad behavior. The Sanders campaign’s focus on winning white males has had the unintentional side effect where some of these white dudes use their fear to “defend” Bernie and attack critics or even folks who support another candidate.
It is quite a phenomena.
February 1, 2016 at 7:26 am
Mark
Did I just read that white men are a minority?
February 5, 2016 at 6:18 pm
Lulex7
But, um, ‘Bernie Bros’ must be inherently sexist/homophobic/racist, otherwise you have just listed why you don’t deserve criticism for things you have posted negatively about Sanders.
February 11, 2016 at 6:02 pm
floon (@hteasley)
I love this analysis. There’s one more thing, that I think compounds the issue:
There’s a certain voter personality that is only periodically engaged with politics. When engaged, they are passionate. When not, they are nowhere to be found. It’s a personality type that votes for revolution, because they don’t have the patience for the slog of the daily, monthly, yearly grind of the process.
So they show up every four years for anyone who promises to revamp the system: they want a lot of things and want them now.
I don’t like them, partly because they’re fickle enough to screw themselves and me: they elect Obama, but don’t show up for the midterms. Their job is done! They elected him. But then then can’t be bothered to continue to give him a workable Congress.
They don’t like Clinton’s message because she’s telling them precisely what they don’t want to hear: the system is big, it takes experience to handle, it takes ability to compromise with the enemy, which you get if you vote for her. It’s a nuanced message and is not super inspiring, especially to low-patience voters who want to robustly engage for a short time, and then leave it all alone.
February 11, 2016 at 9:24 pm
Heather Munro Prescott
Thanks for writing this. I hope it does some good.
February 13, 2016 at 3:08 pm
wobblywheel
Floon:
I think you’re right that a lot of voters basically ignore politics for years at a time and become “revolutionary” only once every 4 years or so. However: is it bad of them that they’re this way, or is it bad of our democratic system that it requires engagement on much too frequent a basis? After all, revolutionary passion is hard for most people to sustain year after year. For example, I’m sure AJ is revolutionary from time to time, but on a regular basis he appears to spend most of his time defending the latest staffing expansion at the Provost of Diversity’s office. That’s because it would be exhausting for him to be revolutionary all of the time. That limitation is part of the human condition. By requiring constant engagement, our system tends to make it very difficult for actual humans to achieve revolutionary change.
May 3, 2016 at 2:26 pm
Esra Gules-Guctas
I am tired of this Berniebro narrative. I am a 38 years old mother of two & I support Bernie Sanders for president. Currently, I am pursuing a PhD degree in political science. I have two law degrees and a master’s degree in political science. It is grossly unfair to frame a candidate based on handful of supporters behaviors. By same logic one can insinuate Hillary Clinton too since some of her supporters were hateful and negative too. Just check this page and see the proof for yourself. http://berniebrowho.tumblr.com/ Why this columnist fail to report on how Sanders facebook pages were flooded w child porn by Clinton supporters w proof
http://www.mediaite.com/online/sanders-fanpages-were-flooded-with-porn-and-people-are-blaming-clinton-supporters/ Clinton supporters harassed me on twitter calling me berniebra and worse language.
Berniebro narrative is intentionally being pushed to discredit a legitimate candidate via discrediting his supporters. It was Obamaboys in 2008 http://www.salon.com/2008/04/14/obama_supporters/
Paul Krugman used the same narrative against Obama supporters
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=0
This narrative is politically calculated Bill Clinton’s comment stating “Bernie supporters wanting to shoot every third person in Wall Street” was very offensive. I demand corporate citizens’ unlawful behaviors to be held accountable, and I am baffled to be subjected to ridicule by a former President despite the overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing.
Goldman Sachs effectively admitted that it had knowingly misled investors to buy shoddy products. Just like in past settlements, no individual bankers have been charged with wrong doing. Despite the fact that “this resolution holds Goldman Sachs accountable for its serious misconduct in falsely assuring investors that securities it sold were backed by sound mortgages, when it knew that they were full of mortgages that were likely to fail.”
As reported in New York Times “buried in the fine print are provisions that allow Goldman to pay hundreds of millions of dollars less — perhaps as much as $1 billion less — than that headline figure. And that is before the tax benefits of the deal are included.” The bank will be able to reduce its bill substantially through a combination of government incentives and tax credits. For example, the settlement calls for Goldman to spend $240 million on affordable housing. But a chart attached to the settlement explains that the bank will have to pay at most only 30 percent of that money to fulfill the deal. That is because it will receive a particularly large credit for each dollar it spends on affordable housing. Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general, announced that Goldman would pay $280 million for community reinvestment and neighborhood stabilization in New York. But an annex to the agreement with New York explains that Goldman will get $2 of credit for every dollar it spends in this area, meaning that it will ultimately have to pay ONLY $140 million to meet the terms of the deal.
“We all know about TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which spent $700 billion in taxpayers’ money to bail out banks after the financial crisis. That money was scrutinized by Congress and the media. But it turns out that that $700 billion is just a small part of a much larger pool of money that has gone into propping up our nation’s financial system. And most of that taxpayer money hasn’t had much public scrutiny at all. According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point in 2009 the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy.”
As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof explains that “according to the Oxfam report for each dollar America’s 50 biggest companies paid in federal taxes between 2008 and 2014, they received $27 back in federal loans, loan guarantees and bailouts. Among the 500 corporations in the S.&P. 500-stock index, 27 were both profitable in 2015 and paid no net income tax globally, according to an analysis by USA Today.” In his thorough analysis Kristoff further draws attention to the most revealing fact that “one academic study found that tax dodging by major corporations costs the U.S. Treasury up to $111 billion a year. By New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s math, less than one-fifth of that annually would be more than enough to pay the additional costs of full-day prekindergarten for all 4-year-olds in America ($15 billion), prevent lead poisoning in tens of thousands of children ($2 billion), provide books and parent coaching for at-risk kids across the country ($1 billion) and end family homelessness ($2 billion).”
Goldman Sachs paid a small fine and made massive investigation go away while on the other hand according to a 2014 study conducted by researchers at Oxford University more than 10,000 suicides tied to economic crisis. It is important to remember that Small Business owners could not receive bailout.
As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof further points out “it’s because the issues seem arcane that corporate lobbyists get away with murder. The Oxfam report says that each $1 the biggest companies spent on lobbying was associated with $130 in tax breaks and more than $4,000 in federal loans, loan guarantees and bailouts.”
Senator Sanders is not anti-business, he is anti-bad business practices. “In his Six-Point Plan, Sanders advocates that small businesses should have access to the same low-interest loans the Fed offers to foreign banks. When small businesses can more easily access loans affordable to them, investment grows domestically rather than overseas, giving the economy a boost. Sanders helped pass the Small Business Jobs Act, which gave low-interest loans to small businesses and offered around $12 billion nationally in small-business tax breaks in 2010. It also provided $30 billion in capital for small businesses.”
I demand corporate citizens’ unlawful behaviors to be held accountable, and I am baffled to be subjected to ridicule by a former President despite the overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing.
Hillary Clinton stated that she stood up to banks as a senator. But she didn’t push hard to end carried interest treatment which is the most egregious loophole.
As a New York State resident, I also want to point out that General Electric received IDA money in Schenectady to sponsor a battery plant that then closed, and they KEPT the money, $12.5 million. Can’t help but wonder how did NYS allow them to do that? GE has been deploying its army of lawyers and fighting the property taxes all over the country for years the ordinary residents of Schenectady County paid more in real estate taxes than GE which used tax loopholes. GE property tax settlements are Public Record. While on the other hand my daughter’s school district had severe budget cuts. I am disturbed when I consider what that $12.5 million would have done for Schenectady schools or any other worthy cause for that matter.
GE spends more money on tax avoidance attorneys than on cleaning up the environmental messes they made. For instance GE polluted the Hudson River and has been fighting with EPA for years. As stated in Washington Post Opt-Ed “Thanks to GE, the Hudson River has become a 200-mile long monument to corporate greed. From 1947 to 1977, GE dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of PCBs, a toxic legacy that is still with us.”
And they will likely to receive tax breaks just like Exxon will receive from the settlement for BP oil spill as business fees according a report by Wall Street Journal. In addition a CNNMoney analysis shows how GE’s U.S. footprint has indeed shrunk dramatically over the past two decades. According a recent CNNMoney analysis Back in 1995, roughly 68% of GE’s 222,000 total employees were in the U.S, according to its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. By 2005, the percentage of American jobs declined to 51% and by the end of 2015, just 38% of its employees were in the U.S. GE has 10 fewer U.S. plants today than a decade ago. But the number of factories overseas has risen by 58. GE’s total global workforce has increased to 333,000. But it employs fewer American workers today — 125,000 versus 161,000 in 2005.
While substantially cutting jobs available to Americans General Electric received a tax subsidy of nearly $29 billion over the last 11 years. While dodging paying its fair share of federal income taxes, GE pocketed $21.8 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts from Uncle Sam between 2006 and 2012. In the similar vein, Verizon made $19.3 billion in US pretax profits from 2008 to 2012, yet didn’t pay any federal income taxes during the period. Instead, it got $535 million in tax rebates. Verizon’s effective federal income tax rate was negative 2.8 percent from 2008 to 2012. Likewise, Pfizer paid no US income taxes from 2010 to 2012 while earning $43 billion worldwide. It did this in part by performing accounting acrobatics to shift its US profits offshore. It received $2.2 billion in federal tax refunds. Study after study demonstrates how middle class is continually eroding.
If a citizen is not angry about the above stated facts that means they are not paying attention. It is profoundly unjust that people who are responsible to bring the global economy to the brink of collapse are not only being punished but also being rewarded via additional tax breaks for the fines they have to pay. While on the other hand, many countries had to push austerity measures, many people lost their homes, jobs, and closed their business.
May 3, 2016 at 2:35 pm
Angus Johnston
Esra, it’s not clear to me that you read my post. The arguments you’re responding to mostly aren’t arguments I made, and in fact a few of the things you say in your response are things I said in the piece.