“Mike Bloomberg has been publishing videos attacking Bernie Sanders and Bernie supporters for being ‘toxic’—and then Bloomberg fabricated grotesque fake quotes” [“praising despotism”] “and attributed them to Bernie.” – from an article published by CommonDreams.org
This is what the establishment does: It projects.
For the second consecutive primary season, an obscenely rich right-winger with an appallingly Trump-like history is smearing the most gentle, compassionate, moderate/centrist candidate with the most popular policy proposals and the least aggressive, least white supporters.
In 2016, David Brock (who called Prof. Anita Hill “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty”) tarred us with the invented “Bernie Bro” smear — created by the Clinton campaign, as reported by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Glenn Greenwald. (This was the same political machine that had dubbed Obama’s 2008 supporters “Obama Boys,” accusing then-Sen. Obama’s supporters of being unusually aggressive and “sexist.”)
Was it true? Were Bernie’s 2015-16 on-line supporters unusually aggressive or hostile? Not that I saw, and I was hopping everywhere from DailyKos, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, CommonDreams.org, The New York Times, Facebook, TruthDig, and beyond.
More significantly, Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting’s former managing editor, Julie Hollar (today, FAIR’s senior election analyst), recently reported the March 2016 study that found Sec. Clinton’s on-line supporters nearly twice as “threatening” as Sanders’s supporters (30% to 16%).
I can attest to that.
Where was the MSM’s reporting about all of the “Hillary Harridans” (most of whom were bullying white men)? Why didn’t the MSM go with a sexist framing of her “toxic” trolls, many of whom were literally on the payroll of David Brock, the Clintons’ answer to Karl Rove?
(They could have called out the “Brock Bros,” at least, and acquainted their audiences with Brock’s shameful history in the service of no-holds-barred, right-wing politics.)
Now, in 2020, a serially racist and misogynist modern plutocrat — Mayor “Stop & Frisk” himself, who has paid the better part of a billion dollars to the DNC and bought himself a candidacy, thanks to changed debate rules and paid staffers on the DNC’s “Rules Committee” — is trying to paint Bernie Sanders, the candidate of the working class and people of color, as a proponent of DESPOTISM.
(Positively despicable.)
Once again, the pot is calling the kettle black.
Colloquially put, haters gonna’ hate…
That these haters represent the elite — and the people they’re hating on represent the most vulnerable and marginalized — well, that’s something they’d rather not talk about.
(It makes the Identity Politics “Woke” sticker on their sleeves look like a tasteless joke.)