Bernie Loses His Halo

[sufrommich]

Through much of the campaign, Sanders wore a progressive halo, making it tricky for Clinton to play classic hardball politics (not that she didn’t try). Even if Democratic voters didn’t believe he was the practical choice, his platform still spoke to the ideological aspirations of many in the party. His supporters heard, “I like Bernie, but…” so much that they turned it into a website providing information designed to assuage unsure voters.

Much of the warm, fuzzy sentiment was based on a perception of Sanders as a non-politician, a man so wedded to his ideals that he would not besmirch them by engaging in petty politics. Democrats of all stripes lauded Sanders in October when he went out of his way to keep the debate focus on policy and take an enticing line of attack off the table, thundering, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”

But in the months that followed, the Sanders campaign adopted an increasingly harder edge, gradually depriving him of angelic protections. Now, with only six states remaining on the primary calendar, the delegate math harder and harder to ignore, and the Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump short of insurmountable, partisan impulses on the left are kicking in, and patience for squabbles is wearing thin.

This week another prominent figure in the online progressive community, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall, also blamed Sanders directly for the increased animosity, saying: “The 'burn it down' attitude, the upping the ante … seems to be coming from Sanders himself. Right from the top.” Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum said more in sorrow than in anger this week, “It's sort of painful to see a good person like Bernie turned into such a sullen and resentful man.”


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/bernie-sanders-loses-his-halo-213911#ixzz49TdTewr3
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[JaneyVee]

1. He's the biggest Berniebro of all

[rjsquirrel]

2. Yep and a consummate politician

whose "authenticity" is a carefully styled product. Purity sells to idealistic and privileged young (and some old) white campus left progressives, so he'll play pure grandpa Bernie all day long.

[Surya Gayatri]

9. "...a consummate politician whose "authenticity" is a carefully styled product."

[seabeyond]

13. Yup. Agree with you all. Nt

[w4rma]

3. Survey shows Clinton supporters are more aggressive online than Sanders supporters

What's more surprising is the perception on the Democratic side—nearly twice as many respondents viewed Clinton's supporters as very aggressive (30 percent) as said the same for Sanders supporters (16 percent). While women were more likely than men to see Trump supporters as aggressive, the opposite was true for both Clinton and Sanders.

Among respondents who point to Clinton as their first choice, 22 percent labeled Clinton supporters' online behavior as very aggressive. Within the Sanders camp, 14 percent of his supporters leveled the self-proclaimed democratic socialist's fan club as especially aggressive.

These results run contrary to the popular narrative of the so-called “Bernie bro,” passionate (typically male) Sanders supporters whose forceful push-back against anyone (typically female) saying nice things about Clinton was often viewed as harassment. The relative merits of the Bernie bro phenomenon were debated endlessly, but qualifying it has largely remained elusive.

“We didn't do a lot of follow up specifically about Bernie bros or anything like that, but the numbers certainly point to the fact that there's probably a little bit more attention going to the Bernie supporters who are taking a very hard stance compared to what seems to be happening out there,” Hankin explained. “I think there's a lot of discussion out there, but that discussion may be proportionally out of whack—at least according to the survey results that we see.”

http://www.dailydot.com/politics/online-incivility-study-bernie-bro/

[NJCher]

4. well, we know BernieBros is a made-up media confab

And this article plays into promoting that image of Sanders and his supporters being aggressive, nasty people. The people who put this campaign together probably knew about the incivility study you quote.

So the writer quotes three Hillary supporters for evidence of Bernie's "harder edge." Not that I believe for a minute that there is a "harder edge," but I certainly am seeing there's a campaign to to make it look like there is. Finally the writer gets to a weak comment ("as I would have liked&quot from a Sanders supporter, and goes on to conclude that Bernie should go back to focus his campaign on the issues as we wind up the primaries.

I saw Bernie on a Sunday a.m. news show and he stuck to the issues. In the last few days, I've watched various clips posted here at DU with Bernie speaking, and I've also visited youtube to watch clips of Bernie. Nowhere do I hear anything but about the same issues he's been talking about since Day One.

I think this writer was hard up for a thesis statement. Either that or "someone" gave him some talking points.

Try again, Mr. Scher. You can do better.


Cher

[w4rma]

5. Good points (nt)

[workinclasszero]

10. The wellspring as it were

of all things Bro.

[Logical]

6. Hillary loses to trump, which is not a shock. Nt

[Alex4Martinez]

8. I fitting end for her career, a tragic outcome for the rest of us.

And all of this consistent with the end of an empire.

We chose poorly, time after time, since Reagan.

In 2008 we did the right thing, this is the one exception to 50 years of fucking it up.

[BeyondGeography]

7. It's all about the process now

Many of his supporters are prepared to think the worst about our system and he's using them to prop himself up. That's how Bernie lost his halo.

[GreatGazoo]

11. Again with the not-a-Christian dog whistles?

we get it already...

[Renew Deal]

12. People are starting to notice that positive Bernie has been replaced

With a hellfire and brimstone negative opportunist

[DesertRat]

14. "Bernie loses his halo" is now trending on Twitter

[frazzled]

16. Character matters (and is finally becoming apparent)

It was clear to me from the beginning that Bernie Sanders was lacking in all the character traits I sought in a president: I marked him immediately as imperious, angry, self-important, unreflective, un-nuanced, demagogic even. I have never gotten the idea that Sanders cares about real people at all, only about his self-inflated view of the importance of himself and his (frankly, stale) ideas. And he certainly has no time for trivialities like policy or negotiating skills. He's an iconoclast, and I've never much been one for iconoclasts. They tear things down without building anything up. It's about egotism.

Bernie Sanders sheltered himself away in the very little, very white, very pastoral small pond of Vermont for the past 50 years so that he could become a relatively big fish. Being disconnected from the real world of America's large cities or vast plains, he clung to a couple of ideas he formulated in the 60s and 70s, based on Debsian ideas popular in the 1920s. When finally he saw a chance to tap into America's current (and hopefully brief) mental breakdown, with the added bonus of becoming the only one willing to become the anti-Hillary, he enjoyed a measure of success in garnering the enthusiasm of a substantial segment of newbies and has-beens by repeating these few slogans endlessly, with no effort to bother about the details or implementation. This success only bolstered the unflattering trait of egotism and self-righteousness already festering for many years ... which has now turned into angry vilification of his opponent, paranoid conspiracies about the "fairness" of the system (worthy of a 5th grader), and a thinly veneered air of nastiness. He doesn't even deign to control the ugly outbreaks of his supporters, and indeed encourages it. It's no longer even about issues. It's about him, and ... surprise ... more and more people are finding out that they don't really like him.

It's about character: the most important trait of a presidential candidate. (And yes, I liked Barack Obama's character more than I liked Hillary's in 2008, much as I still respected her smarts and hard work; but I like her character a hell of a lot more than I care for Bernie's.)

Angry, bitter, and whining never wins in the end.