The Bernie bro narrative - a cheap false campaign tactic

[Warren Stupidity]

The concoction of the “Bernie Bro” narrative by pro-Clinton journalists has been a potent political tactic – and a journalistic disgrace. It’s intended to imply two equally false claims: (1) a refusal to march enthusiastically behind the Wall-Street-enriched, multiple-war-advocating, despot-embracing Hillary Clinton is explainable not by ideology or political conviction, but largely if not exclusively by sexism: demonstrated by the fact that men, not women, support Sanders (his supporters are “bros”); and (2) Sanders supporters are uniquely abusive and misogynistic in their online behavior. Needless to say, a crucial tactical prong of this innuendo is that any attempt to refute it is itself proof of insensitivity to sexism if not sexism itself (as the accusatory reactions to this article will instantly illustrate).

It’s become such an all-purpose, handy pro-Clinton smear that even consummate, actual “bros” for which the term was originally coined – straight guys who act with entitlement and aggression, such as Paul Krugman – are now reflexively (and unironically) applying it to anyone who speaks ill of Hillary Clinton, even when they know nothing else about the people they’re smearing, including their gender, age or sexual orientation. Thus, a male policy analyst who criticized Sanders’ health care plan “is getting the Bernie Bro treatment,” sneered Krugman. Unfortunately for The New York Times Bro, that analyst, Charles Gaba, said in response that he’s “really not comfortable with [Krugman’s] referring to die-hard Bernie Sanders supporters as ‘Bernie Bros'” because it “implies that only college-age men support Sen. Sanders, which obviously isn’t the case.”

It is indeed “obviously not the case.” There are literally millions of women who support Sanders over Clinton. A new Iowa poll yesterday shows Sanders with a 15-point lead over Clinton among women under 45, while 1/3 of Iowa women over 45 support him. A USA Today/Rock-the-Vote poll from two weeks ago found Sanders nationally “with a 19-point lead over front-runner Hillary Clinton, 50% to 31%, among Democratic and independent women ages 18 to 34.” One has to be willing to belittle the views and erase the existence of a huge number of American women to wield this “Bernie Bro” smear.

https://theintercept.com/2016/01/31/the-bernie-bros-narrative-a-cheap-false-campaign-tactic-masquerading-as-journalism-and-social-activism/

[cali]

1. Yep. Smears. The Clintons are slimemasters. That is documented fact

[KittyWampus]

15. LOL! You think the Clintons came up with BernieBros? Funny how you can't refute the obnoxious

and immature internet behavior. But HEY, BernieBros aren't all guys.

Or rather, on the internet they MAY not be mostly guys.

But a helluva lot of them swarm anyone who endorses Clinton.

Sanders campaign has apologized for them and tried to tell them to rein it in. To no effect.

They seem to ignore O'Malley.

[retrowire]

46. immature internet behavior comes from all sides and movements

case in point... your post right here.

[notadmblnd]

76. ...

[DonCoquixote]

67. as someone who plans to vote o malley

I can tell you this article is true: not everyone who dislikes POSITIONS and ACTIONS Hillary has taken and IS taking is a sexist, and just like in 2008, people are using that term to make anyone who points out those positions and actions of Hillary to shut up or risk being demonized. Meanwhile many of the women whose family members would risk being sent to Syria, those female soldiers who have already done five tours in the middle east, those women who have had their houses stolen by bankers, or who are in hock for medical bills, are all magically erased from perception because all who are HURT by Hillary are supposedly all sexist college age white males.

This would not be so sad if this was not a proven failure of a technique. Hillary could have run a successful 2016 campaign, but instead, she is running the same campaign she did in 2008, with the same people, and for the benefit of those who seemed to think we could roll things back to 2008 and have that promised kingdom denied us by Obama. Obama is the person they exploit for the Afro-American vote, yet they sick out Krugman, who talked about him in the condescending, patronizing tone that many non-whites have heard come out of some "liberal" mouths, and who has resumed that same talk as he thinks he will get that cabinet position that Obama failed to hand him on a silver platter.

[senz]

82. Very well said, DC.

[frylock]

72. It just seems like a swarm because there are so damn many of us..

and we are EVERYWHERE! We are the people you depend on. We cook your meals. We haul your trash. We connect your calls. We drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not fuck with us.

[ismnotwasm]

64. ...

[Armstead]

2. "straight guys who act with entitlement and aggression, such as Paul Krugman"

zing

[KittyWampus]

17. Paul Krugman has been swarming blogs, facebook, twitter with nasty, obnoxious comments?

[Armstead]

18. He doesn't have to -- He has a national column and blog to do that

[beam me up scottie]

23. DING DING DING!

Krugman has his own bully pulpit.

[HerbChestnut]

21. He doesn't have to.

He has national media outlets.

[SamKnause]

3. I am a 62 year old female.

I support Bernie 100%.

I guess I am a Bernie Bro.

I am not on Facebook.

I am not on Twitter.

This is the only site I blog on.

I vote in every online poll after debates and forums.


FEEL THE BERN

[Warren Stupidity]

6. It is a determined effort by the Clinton campaign to

make the contest about anything other than the substantive policy differences between Sanders and Clinton

[nolabels]

20. Which often times seems to backfire

That idea that you can be your own worst enemy often comes true when you get to point of being too full of yourself. It's funny and seems that they have such hard case to crack. If they attack Bernie on issues, personality, legislation or just about anything then that meme about contrasting to their side which makes avenue problematic for them. They then would want to attack people around him but mostly they are mostly volunteer so bad things and bad ideas are not following them around much.

I guess one of the things they have left to attack are the millions of contributors to his campaign, lets see how that goes

[senz]

83. Excactly. It's a deflection.

[chervilant]

38. Just turned 60 on Jan 6,

and I have been feeling the BERN since the very beginning.

I guess I must be a "Bernie Bro," too.

Sad, how low some will go to smear Bernie Sanders (and his supporters), but I know we'll prevail.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

53. Same here.

I'm an old lady with cats, kind of the opposite of a "bro." I don't comment on Facebook or Twitter; I don't "swarm" anybody, I just vote. My cat-loving old lady friends are also supporting Bernie. I don't even know any "bros."

[snort]

61. I had somebody 'accuse' me of being a

Berniebro. I said "Thank you, I'll donate some more to his campaign right now". And so I did. Easy squeezy. I'm not sure what the hell a Berniebro is, but I'll take it and wear it, same as I do with Liberal and Progressive. Cuz fuck it.

[SamKnause]

66. Fucking A !!!!!

FEEL THE BERN

P.S. Fuck is my favorite word. It has such versatility.

[Matariki]

73. This 50-something female is right there with you.

I don't see Clinton as entitled just because she's a Clinton. Or a woman. Her positions are wrong.

[Renew Deal]

4. Isn't "Bernie-bro" and accepted term by the group it represents?

I thought I saw it used on DU by Sanders supporters.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Are the protocols for such nicknames usually the same for those in the group and for those outside

the group? I mean in general if you here people use a certain term about one another do you feel entitled to then also use it about them? I find that that is not a very wise or respectful choice in many cases.

[Renew Deal]

10. Generally I would think so

If they use it in a positive manner.

That's the first time I've used it. I am not clear if it's a nickname or an insult like "teabagger".

[Bluenorthwest]

48. So you think that if you hear a minority group refer to each other in a certain way you are free to

do the same? Seriously?

[Renew Deal]

55. This is not a minority group. This is a political campaign.

I would think that most people wouldn't voluntarily hurl insults at each other.

[Armstead]

19. Only in the sense of adopting an insult to defuse it

[Renew Deal]

22. That makes sense

The acceptance always seemed ambiguous to me

[ErisDiscordia]

30. Used as what? An object of Hillarious Imagination?

[Z_California]

69. You may have seen me use it

And missed the sarcasm and irony.

Berniebro is a tool of the disgusting identity politics that Hillary has always used and exploited.

A poster who wields the term in earnest instantly loses any credibility.

It's in the same category as "libtard"

[Renew Deal]

70. Thanks

That's the first simple explanation I've gotten.

[beam me up scottie]

5. Just shows you how desperate they are, they can't run on issues so they resort to cheap shots.

Inventing new slurs to shame enthusiastic supporters, just like they slimed Obama supporters in 2008.

[Renew Deal]

12. Al Franken would agree with you.

[frylock]

74. Al Franken's endorsement was met with mild disagreement.

I can understand how upsetting that can be to the tender sensibilities of some people though.

[DCBob]

7. That article cites numbers from Iowa which is not representative of America as a whole.

Overall the entire country I believe the numbers support the notion that Bernie is the candidate favored by younger voters, whites and males.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. I'd say it cites the State that is about to hold an election while the bulk of the other States are

still further out from their own elections. Today, Iowa is the electorate in question not the national. Today the national numbers are absurdly speculative. Iowa happens tomorrow. Not in three months. Tomorrow.

[DCBob]

11. I would not say national polling is "absurdly speculative".

What's absurdly speculative is basing a judgment on anything on a single state... especially one like Iowa which is one of least representative states in the country.

[libdem4life]

16. A win is a win. A first win shifts the conversation. As you well know, the national politics is

very sensitive to real results...either way. If it's different than expected, the undecideds and previously uninvolved often take another look. I don't think anyone is being "absurdly speculative"...but I do accept your opinion.

[KittyWampus]

13. The Reality of Bernie Bros and their female counterparts has played out even here on DU.

It's also been well documented.

So if you want to argue all the swarming, nasty ideologues who harass, bully and censor those who don't support Sanders, that only means you can't refute the inexcusably obnoxious and CHILDISH behavior so many Sanders supporters engage in while on the internet.

[retrowire]

50. i got a rebuttal

we never made sites like jackassradicals or Hillary supporters.com

all sides have trolls. but I don't recall Bernie fans going that far.

[SamKnause]

59. n/t

FEEL THE BERN

[snort]

65. C'mon get with it!

Have you actually checked for a 'BerniebrosForPresidentcuzwehateHillarynowhandmeanotherlatte.com'? No? Then you can't say that.

[Docreed2003]

14. By demographics I fall into the Bernie Bro category...

I'm male, white, and from the South. That's the surface, but not the entire picture. My grandparents were FDR Dems. I was brought up in a world that abhorred racial inequality, because their friends had been victimized by Jim Crow laws of the era and when my grandparents had the oppportunity to own a store of their own, that country grocery store had no barriers of race, that was the 1950's. My mother was a strong woman who, for a period of time, raised me as a single mom until my dad, who adopted me at a young age, and she married. The idea that women were inferior to men was never, ever entertained in our home. Mom was Southern Baptist, dad was, as I describe it, an agnostic Catholic. Truth be told both had some conservative beliefs but a woman's right to choose was something both believed strongly in, something I can remember both commenting on as a teenager and they both fought for candidates who held pro-choice beliefs. In the 90's, I was in college when one of my childhood best friends confided in me that he was gay. I had always known but never thought to judge, mainly because I had grown up with two uncles who had lived together for years. My friend and his husband, the love of his life, recently were able to marry thanks to same sex marriage being approved for all. I'm sure there will be people who read my post and think, "Well he's just ticking off his progressive boxes to try and impress". Maybe so, but I'm not bragging, just peeling back the layers of my own story. So I'm a BernieBro, it seems....but I don't think I'm any less liberal than any other Democratic demographic. I'm just one dude, trying to do my part to make my small part of the world a better place. I think most of us feel the same.

[farleftlib]

25. It didn't sound like bragging to me

At the risk of sounding totally ignorant, your description of your upbringing sounds atypical for the place and time. Thanks for posting it. Bernie Sanders supporters are from all walks of life. I'm a baby-boomer female from a large metropolitan city in the mid-atlantic and my parents were strong Dems but somewhat socially conservative. IOW, I'm the leftiest person in my family and if the term BernieBro fits, then I'll wear it proudly.

[Mbrow]

36. Interesting,

My family was blue collar all the way and my father and mother raised in all white northern rural Michigan. while we weren't so poor as not to have food I do remember a lot of cheap meals (never notice until much later in life looking back) so to the point, my father was one of the most un-bigoted men I knew, he always treated POC with respect, supported my mother going to college to get her degree. when he worked at GMC (union member) he always stood strong with the union and was not afraid to criticize it if it was wrong. You would be surprised at how many people in the poorer and rural areas are like that, hell one of our best family friend is gay and my Dad always treated him as family as well, It really not that usual. Our county here in Idaho is 99% LDS outside of town and 35% in town voted 37% for Obama.

[farleftlib]

41. kewl

Nice to meetcha. I love hearing the about the background of DUers. I also remember those cheap meals growing up, but we thought it was yummy good stuff at the time. Luckily my mom was a good cook and could make the cheap cuts and humble ingredients taste good. I always say I'm lucky in that I know how to be "poor." Vacations were day trips to the beach if we were lucky, but we had relatives who lived in rural NJ and visiting them was an adventure to us city kids. We felt like we had the best of both worlds and in a real sense we did.

Mom and Dad are very pro-labor and remarkably open-minded about race and sexual orientation, it was just stuff like the death penalty (pro ) and being Catholic, rather anti-choice. They're both in a nursing home now and it's hard not being able to share all this Bernie enthusiasm with them. I know my dad especially would love him but he's got Alzheimer's so politics has gone by the wayside. I used to love the stories he'd tell about the cool liberal stuff he was involved with when he was a younger man, it definitely shaped my worldview and my politics. He especially admonished us to question everything. Oh well, I could go on and on. Thanks for your reply

[Docreed2003]

44. Yeah we're certainly an atypical group...

I'm a Gen X'er myself. I think that all we can do is continue to fight through the BS attacks and keep getting the message out!

[Dustlawyer]

24. It will be nice to have Publicly Funded Elections where the campaign season will be only a few

months long and there won't be so much money to make all of the personal attacks and campaign BS! We don't need two years of this crap each Presidential election cycle.

[ErisDiscordia]

31. Amen!

May we live to see true campaign AND campaign finance reform!

[DanTex]

26. Objecting to the name? OK. But trying to deny that Bernie supporters online are

prone to smearing anyone who doesn't fall in line, much more so than Hillary supporters, is just silly.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. You have selective visioin. Hillary supporters get plenty of time outs on DU and a few have been PPR

One of them spent months taking pot shots at Bernie only to be PPR'd for posting extreme antisemitic materials after the Paris shootings. That one also smeared LGBT regularly while retaining a great popularity among her cohort. I had posts hidden by her friends just for quoting her bigoted filth. She was protected by those who shared her candidate, in spite of what she was actually saying and doing on DU.

Any and all campaigns will contain persons of all sorts. To win the WH the required electorate is so vast that it will have actual criminals in it, also it will have pretenders who feign support to rat fuck their rivals, cranks who take part only to be cranks, and of course also lovely people supporting for all the right reasons.

DUers who are today 'Hillary supporters' have in the past been Hillary bashers. Some who smear Bernie use the same smears they used against Barack.

So go try to see your theory to those who are not paying attention. I could link all day to examples, but you'd just alert because the truth is a difficult thing for you folks who need to believe your own press.

[DanTex]

35. It's no surprise that juries are tougher on Hillary supporters than Bernie supporters, given that

DU breaks about 85-15 Bernie. But the fact that the DU jury system systematically favors the majority has nothing to do with which side is worse behaved.

It's so obvious that even Bernie's campaign has taken notice. Anyone who writes something critical of Bernie or supportive of Hillary gets smeared on line. Do you think Robert Reich's facebook page got hit with a huge number of insults when he endorsed Bernie?

[Bluenorthwest]

45. That's a silly excuse. Why not own up to the humanity of your own cohort?

Your side has surly, shitty people just as the other side does. What I note about your response is the lack of responsiveness. You do not actually address what I have said to you, which was quite a bit. You want to deny it but that's just daft.

[DanTex]

47. It's not an excuse, it's a fact. And it's obvious. The fact that you can't even bring yourself to

admit that in a partisan environment, randomly selected juries are going to be tougher on people in the minority, is yet another indication of the lengths that Bernie fans will go to to delude themselves about their collective behavior.

[Bluenorthwest]

51. It's an excuse. Look at your own comments in this thread, your first is a smear of Bernie supporters

presented along with a claim that Hillary supporters don't do anything bad at all. It's not just an excuse it is a proactive evasion of the facts at hand requiring you to fully ignore everything I say to you. Even here you are using 'Bernie fans' while I say 'Hillary supporters'. And you are attacking me while I am being critical of your verbiage and specific evasion of what I am saying to you. You insult me and continue ranting away as if I had said nothing.

Mean spirited and lacking in introspection.

[DanTex]

52. Do you not think that in an 85-15 environment, juries are going to be significantly

tougher on pro-Hillary posts than pro-Bernie posts?

Right now there's an op calling Hillary "evil". You think an OP calling Bernie "evil" would even survive, much less get 67 recs and counting?

[gregcrawford]

62. Bullpucky

If you're going to make a blanket condemnation, it behooves you to document it. I got banned from the Hillary group just for asking a perfectly reasonable question, and that was before Bernie had even announced his candidacy. The most vitriolic malice I have witnessed has come from those with funny little Hs as their avatar.

Hillary's own record is her worst enemy, and her choice of "friends" doesn't help much, either. I mean, Henry fucking KISSINGER?!!? Really?

If she does win the nomination, I will support her. Can you say the same if Sanders wins it?

[senz]

84. No. Hillary supporters regularly interrupt peaceful Bernie threads with

insults, sarcasm, ridicule, and one upsmanship in droves. It's ugly, and usually when I see a thread is loaded with Hill supporters, I won't click on it.

[Bluenorthwest]

27. Krugman and Walsh both said the same sorts of things about Obama and his supporters in 08.

Makes both of them look like hacks who phone in a template every cycle.

Walsh 08: " On Saturday, Harriet Christian replaced Ferraro as the overwrought voice of white female resentment. There she was at the Democratic National Committee meeting, screaming at reporters that Democrats were about to nominate “an inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for president.”

Beyond Christian’s deplorable reference to Obama as an “inadequate black male” was a wail worth hearing. She also said, “I’m proud to be an older American woman!” I can feel her pain."
http://www.salon.com/2008/06/05/obama_54/

Yet recently Joan has had no problem whatsoever calling Bernie an “old socialist inured to being told he’s wrong". I think if you are critical of those who make age an issue for your candidate then smear another with his own age you are a hypocrite. She uses double standards, this year for Bernie and in 08 the same for Obama. She's always willing to dip into the Harriet Christian well to find what she needs to say. 'Over look the racism of my peers and see that they object to sexism and ageism unlike that old socialist man'.

[JimDandy]

68. Righteous!

[orpupilofnature57]

28. Everything but the issues, as she looks more like a Republican everyday .

[CharlotteVale]

29. It's extremely sexist and points out the rank hypocrisy of so many

Clinton supporters.

[ErisDiscordia]

32. It's also extremely untrue, ditto!

[m-lekktor]

33. "....the Wall-Street-enriched, multiple-war-advocating, despot-embracing Hillary Clinton.."

I can't imagine what mental tricks one would have to play with oneself to view her otherwise. She represents everything that is WRONG with politicians, let alone one who is supposed to be a Democrat, the better of the two parties. Supposedly.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

37. Considering Sanders marched with MLK it could easily be misunderstood as a racist attack.

[jalan48]

39. The plutocrats needed new packaging for their product.

They came up with, "The First Woman POTUS". Gullible liberals were supposed to fall dutifully in line, questioning what the candidate stood for was not to be allowed. This was about, "The First Woman POTUS". It seemed to be working wonderfully until Bernie came along and steered the conversation back to actual issues that effect EVERYONE.

[Nanjeanne]

40. Im a 65 year old woman thinking with my head

I have zero interest in simply promoting a woman to the highest office in the country. I would love a woman as President. But not Clinton, not Fiorina, not Nikki Haley, not Jodi Ernst. I'll wait for the right woman -- not any woman.

[Jenny_92808]

79. I agree Nanjeanne.

Well said! I am voting for Bernie because of his policies and I hope to vote for a woman in the future for her policies.

[blackspade]

42. Excellent opinion piece.

And exactly right.

[nichomachus]

43. Stuff like this makes it seem like Karl Rove is advising Hillary's campaign

The Bernie Bro smear has the stench of Rove all over it.

[RufusTFirefly]

49. Corporations don't care if you're a Democrat or a Republican.

And they don't care how you do it. Just as long as you bring home the bacon for them.

[nolabels]

58. There was that same kind of problem back in 1770's

The profits for the East Indie corporation were to first and foremost and everything else be damned.

What a small world we live in

[Nitram]

54. You guys can really dish it out, but you just can't take it.

And in this case, I've seen evidence of the truth of it on DU.

[pandr32]

56. I get it...you don't like it

...so therefore it couldn't possibly have any truth to it...

[DirkGently]

57. A great piece. n/t

[lumberjack_jeff]

60. Boys! Ick! nt

[Hiraeth]

63. and they get by with this sexist crap but, god forbid if it goes the other way around.

the double standard is not attractive.

[Matariki]

71. Yes exactly. You can tell how manufactured it is by the language that's used.

For instance this Boston Globe article that refers to his supporters as 'bands of “Bernie Bros”'. "Bands"?? Like roving bandits or wolves or worse?

So transparent.

[frylock]

75. Hordes of Berniebro marauders.

[beam me up scottie]

85. In purple gingham!

[DisgustipatedinCA]

77. Great job on Greenwald's part in exposing something that was always counterintuitive.

There's been an attempt to map frat boy douchebag behavior onto a group that is far to the left of the group making the accusations.

It's kind of like the Pi Kappa Alphas are accusing the chess club of being frat boys.

[aikoaiko]

78. Pres. Obama gets it so much worse from all quarters and one never hears him whine about it.

I don't understand why the HRC surrogates can't handle a little social media heat and vulgarities.

Its definitely a HRC strategy.

[Jenny_92808]

80. This thread is just an attempt

to smear.

[Jenny_92808]

81. Warren Stupidity Smearer...

You should be ashamed of yourself!

[senz]

86. "Bernie Bro" must be the creation of Hillary's highly paid cadre of "aides"

in their nonstop effort to denigrate everyone and everything connected to Senator Sanders.

She knows she can't win on the issues.