Great Twitter thread from Kurt Eichenwald about what's wrong with Sanders supporters like Cenk Uygar

[highplainsdem]

18-tweet thread starts here, and it's too long for me to copy all the text here.

Link to tweet

Here's the Thread Reader page for the complete thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236343493263536128.html

[beastie boy]

1. Wow... I am sure glad Eichenwald is not posting on DU!

He would have been alerted and banished in a matter of minutes!

[barbtries]

19. this was alerted.

sigh.

[Farmer-Rick]

21. Yeah, this whole thread is about encouraging people to not vote Democratic

If their favorite doesn't get the nod. It's not what DU promotes.

So, much for vote blue no matter who.

[MrsCoffee]

40. "If Bernie wins the nomination, I will vote for him. Or Biden. Hell, or Stein. Or a cat."

How it the whole thread about encouraging people not to vote Democratic?

What a ridiculous thing to say.

The thread is about not letting Sanders supporters hold the party hostage.

[emmaverybo]

2. Excellent read.

[msongs]

3. cenk is sad that his glory days on TV are over and he is all washed up nt

[liberalmuse]

4. I have to agree with this.

Part of me wonders if Bernie isn't a narcissist. Even people who appear to mean well and fight for the good causes can turn out to be not so nice when they put their own self-important ideologies above the common good. Some would rather destroy it all than compromise, sneering at pragmatism. It reminds me of a spoiled child who would rather topple the already towering building blocks than allow the other kids to participate in a way that they might not like or agree with.

[showblue22]

6. You're exactly right

[dalton99a]

5. Kick

[D_Master81]

7. The "corporate Dem" line

The Biden or “centrist Democrat” can’t win line that TYT or Kyle Kulinski regurgitate is so played out. Trying to say “corporate Democrats” lost in 2016 ignores 1 thing, Hillary was incredibly unpopular. She lost to Obama when he was a nobody and had a lot of trouble beating Sanders who was essentially a nobody at the time. She’s probably the one person trump could beat. So to say they’ll lose again by nominating a moderate or centrist isn’t comparable because people were voting against Hillary not necessarily her policies.

[NurseJackie]

8. Parts #7 & 8 ... excellent points made there.

[SunSeeker]

9. Excellent set of tweets. Yup,

[Mr.Bill]

10. Two things I hear from Bernie supporters

in these exact words are "He's going to shake things up" and "He tells it like it is".

Same thing I heard from Trump supporters in 2016. Coincidence?

[Hav]

11. Yes, that was a homerun that needed to be said

"Cults act on behalf of the cult, not the community. What is it that is so great about Bernie that these people see, that makes it worth them putting a gun to the head of kids in cages and saying "Do what I want or I put a bullet in this kid's brain."

Pointing out the narcissism, selfish attitude of wanting things that benefit them and lack of support for other groups that need help was also on point.

[Karadeniz]

12. Thanks for posting!

[DanTex]

13. Did he also call out Biden surrogate Lindy Li who declared she wouldn't vote Bernie over Trump?

Because I agree with him completely in being opposed to "Bernie or Bust". But if he's only calling out one side, when there are just as many people on both sides saying the same kinds of things, then it rings a bit hollow.

[wryter2000]

16. There are not as many people on both sides

You found one (1) Biden supporter, and I imagine she got told to take her attitude and stuff it.

[DanTex]

18. Yes, there are. And it wasn't a random supporter, it was a surrogate, who said that on TV.

And she's not alone, David Frum and other columnists supporting Biden have also said they wouldn't vote for Bernie. Cenk, on the other hand, didn't say he wouldn't vote Biden over Trump, he just said he thought Biden would lose to Trump.

It's another case of selective outrage, by Kurt Eichenwald.

[wryter2000]

24. 12% of Bernie supporters voted for Trump

Per a poll quoted in Newsweek, 54% of Sanders supporters said they'd vote for Biden.
87% of Biden supporters said they'd vote for Sanders.

[Salviati]

35. This.

While you can find examples of people willing to cut their noses off to spite their face on both sides, those are very qualitatively different numbers found in that poll.

Anyone who tries to argue bothsiderism in the face of that poll in being disingenuous.

[ehrnst]

39. "selective outrage" complains the fan of Jacobin....

[peggysue2]

14. Another righteous rant

Eichenwald pulls no punches and states what is clearly in front of us: a political insurgency manned by many, well-heeled zealots who are more than willing to bring the entire country down for their own vanity and willingness to win at all costs.

The urgency of the moment seems to be lost on the likes of Cenk Uygur, the Bernie diehards who will throw whatever shit they can gather, hoping against hope something will stick to the wall and resurrect Sanders' campaign.

Enough is enough. These people have burned far too many bridges and only aid the Trumpsters with their ugly spewings and disinformation.

Personally? I've had it with all of them.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. Yes, Bernie or Bust is gentrified intergenerational warfare - consumerism for the young

Tired of hearing how we should forgive their debt so they can "get on with their lives". What did you take on college debt for in the first place? You thought art history was interesting and we needed 30,000 more degrees in it? The explosion of degrees over the last 30 years has cheapened all degrees except advanced technical types. America is overeducated but remains very dumb.

[Turin_C3PO]

30. Sorry, but that's not fair.

People from your generation were able to go to college at much lower prices. Even adjusted for inflation. Student debt and the cost of tuition needs to be addressed. I’m not saying full forgiveness (although I wouldn’t be opposed to it) and free college is necessarily the way to go. But millennials have been screwed in many ways regarding higher education. No doubt about it.

[bucolic_frolic]

34. Let them pay for it

That's the way the world works. You borrow to buy an asset, you pay for it. If you bought a Cadillac but can't afford to put gas in it, that is not my problem. A single digit percent of annual income is a minimal amount that anyone would be expected to pay over their lifetime for an income-producing asset like a college degree.

There were always alternatives. Night school. Work study. Part time study.

The dollar is worth less nowadays. Financial aid is widely available. That was not always the case. Some people were denied and went to lousy schools. And earned less because of it.

The cost of college has only outpaced inflation because people lobby the government to throw money at it and colleges learned they could grab all they ask for. So yes, people sign onto that.

College does cost more, adjusted for inflation. A 1970s $20k degree is $120-150k today. Something went terribly wrong. Some benefit from it, and some don't. It's not fair to saddle working class taxpayers with no degree with the costs of college for well-educated people with prosperous futures.

[Unca Jim]

17. Ummmm...

He voted for Clinton.

"Uygur was an ardent Bernie Sanders supporter, though he ultimately voted for Hillary Clinton."

https://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/11/cenk-uyger-231099

[bluedye33139]

28. Attack the Democratic establishment to its core, he says

And "We are going to shred the Democratic establishment. We are going to attack it at its core. Because if they do one more election like this where they support corporatist politicians…. they will destroy this country and we’re not going to let them do it. We’re going to take over the Democratic party."

The Twitter thread is about him in the current cycle. It has some pretty harsh language, and I don't think that attacking Cenk with this much hatred is justified, but attacking the Democratic establishment to its core is not consistent with my values as a Democrat.

[TwilightZone]

33. Or so he claims.

He's not exactly a reliable narrator.

[betsuni]

36. Cenk: "Over 20,000 votes on our app and YouTube -- over 80% of our audience

saying that they'd never vote for Hillary. I'm shocked by that result."

He spent years repeating disinformation about Democrats and really went nuts with Hillary Clinton, then is shocked that his audience believed him and won't vote for the Democratic nominee against Trump. For him maybe it's entertainment, business, but he influences people. Not to educate, but to get them to hate and fear Democrats, be cynical and fatalistic and feel helpless. This is the problem.

He and Michael Moore said they voted for Clinton, that doesn't make up for the damage they've done in the last five years by misinforming their audience. And I think now they actually do believe their own propaganda.

[irisblue]

20. 17&18 are my feelings

17...recognize - the Bernie folks who say "Blue no matter who" are good people, they care about others, they care about this country, and I respect them. The ones that say "Bernie or bust, corporate dems, Biden can't win, i am not *inspired*" are no different than....
18...self-centered GOPrs who only want for themselves.

[Sloumeau]

22. highplainsdem, thanks so much for posting this! :)

[BidenBacker]

23. I watched a couple videos last night

that somebody posted on another thread here. One was Uygar doing a bizarre selfie victory dance after Nevada and the other was him going on a full red-faced rant after Biden's big Super Tuesday win. I was shocked at what I saw...this was a guy who I enjoyed watching when he was on MSNBC for a brief time and usually made a lot of sense and strong progressive arguments. But I hardly recognized the raving lunatic he seems to have turned into. Cenk would make a good poster child for a "This is your brain...this is your brain on Bernie" public service announcement.

Another one who I'm starting to see display severe Sandersitis symptoms lately is Michael Moore. It truly saddens me when I start thinking that many fellow progressives who I have long admired and respected should be locked up in a loony bin somewhere until they regain their former mental faculties.

Being part of a "movement" is terrific...as long as the people within it remain focused on advocating their core values and promoting their preferred policies. But when it starts being about a single person who's leading it then it's no longer a movement...it's a cult.

I don't know about the rest of you...but I never was much into cultism. Never seen anything good come from them no matter how lofty the aspirations were that they originally sprang from. Hopefully as soon as researchers develop a vaccine for coronavirus they'll turn their full attention to curing Sandersitis, because we seem to be losing a lot of good people to this not-so-silent disease.

[betsuni]

27. +1

[bluedye33139]

31. I stopped watching The Young Turks several years ago

I find the defeatist message at the core of the Nation and the Intercept and Glenn Greenwald to be depressing and disheartening.

I don't think Cenk is evil, but his personality and temperament lead him into anger and negativity pretty quickly.

I don't really think that progressivism will be advanced with dramatic displays of toxic masculinity.

[BidenBacker]

38. Everybody has their bad days

I'm feeling a little pessimistic myself today and have made a few Negative Nelly posts here that reflect that. But at least tomorrow there's a good chance I'll wake up in a more optimistic mood and post some Positive Polly ones.

But damn, a lot of these Bernie folks seem to be in a state of perpetually pissed off. To be sure, as I said yesterday there's a lot to be mad about and every Democrat is rightfully angry about the current state of affairs. But there are constructive ways of dealing with it and destructive ways and quite a few Sanders supporters seem to have chosen the latter.

It will probably get worse before it gets better. Hopefully Joe can essentially wrap this thing up by early next month if not sooner and then we can all turn our collective attention to exorcising the primary source of our wrath and angst and negativism.

[Cha]

25. Thank you, Kurt!

[Seasider]

29. TYT lost me when they basically became a show for Bernie bros.

To Cenk's credit, he did vote for Hillary in 2016 because even he recognized what was at stake. But their "Bernie can do no wrong" attitude and their weird obsession with tearing down Buttigieg at every turn just turned me off.

[Turin_C3PO]

32. Cenk is an idiot.

He should be ignored or laughed at.

[betsuni]

37. Cats or Bust.

Thank you for posting a satisfying rant!