 Now that Bernie Sanders is surging as we head into the first 2020 primaries, I mean, the mainstream media, the elite class, they're trying everything to stop Bernie Sanders' momentum. They're attacking him relentlessly in the media. You have ghouls like Hillary Clinton coming out of hiding to attack him. And they're even resorting to attacking Bernie Sanders supporters by resurrecting the Bernie Bro myth, which is no longer even factually applicable to Bernie Sanders' campaign based on current demographics. Nonetheless, that is the new tactic that they're trying to use to attack Bernie Sanders. That there's this cult of personality and around him are all of these mostly white males who are attacking mostly women of color. Now I've debunked this myth numerous times. I think that the Bernie Bro myth was dead as early as 2017 when data showed that the Bernie Bro myth isn't actually a realistic thing. Nonetheless, that hasn't stopped them from trying to use it again. So I've got two articles that I want to share with you. The first comes from NBC News with an article titled Trump's MAGA supporters and Twitter Bernie Bros have this ugly tactic in common. Bernie Twitter operates under the self-righteous guise of being the true progressives of the internet. But their harassing tactics are anything but progressive. And what I love is that this person like pretends to be this authority on what is and isn't progressive. But this article is written by Kurt Bardella, who is a former writer for Breitbart. Definitely an authority on progressive politics in the United States. And look, this article as well as the other one I'm going to talk about basically boils down to, look, I said something stupid about Bernie Sanders that people didn't like and they remain to me online. That's literally all that this is about. So the second article comes from The Daily Beast by Scott Bixby and it's titled Bernie Bros are a loud, proud and toxic to Sanders campaign. The Vermont Independent is grappling with a toxic wedge of fandom that threatens to distract from his campaign and turn off potential supporters. So this one is approaching this in a more intelligent way, trying to, I guess, reason with us, if you will, and suggest, look, I get it, you're all angry. You're bros. But it's actually hurting Bernie Sanders. So the first one with Bardella is more of an attack on us directly. And the second one is, you know, the writer from The Daily Beast, just trying to reason with us and get us to not be so passionate about Bernie Sanders because it's only hurting our candidate. Both of them deeply flawed and disingenuous articles, nonetheless, let's indulge them for a moment here. So the first one we'll look at is the NBC News article with the former Breitbart employee. And by the way, let me just say that in 2024, with the rate that all of these mainstream outlets are hiring former Republican and never Trump figures, I wouldn't be surprised to see articles written by Dave Rubin in NBC News or ABC because anyone who is a former Republican, they get a bigger say on the Democratic Party primary in progressive politics than actual progressives. Like it's amazing that we even see individuals like Anna Kasperian and Crystal Ball on CNN ever with how little representation we have in media. Nonetheless, let's get to that first article. Quote, time and again, we see how backlash on social media is used to bully people into submission and silence criticism. For writers and commentators like me, sometimes we have to weigh whether or not it's even worth writing something that could incur the wrath of a political figure's devout following. The backlash is important because it gives us insights into the nature of the political debate on social media who has power and how that power is being wielded. And it's also important to talk about the voices who may be keeping silent and why. The attacks against Warren come from the same corners of social media that disparage Democrats like myself as being puppets, centrists, anti-Semitic and agist for having the audacity to question or scrutinize their chosen leader. People of color and women who dare to disagree with Sanders' political assertions have often borne the brunt of this abuse. This hyper-vocal faction of Sanders supporters, colloquially known as Bernie Bros, never went away after the 2016 presidential election. In my personal experience, these Bros are almost overwhelmingly white men, and they share like Trump's ardent supporters a desire to quote, put me in my place. Disturbingly, there are times where you really can't distinguish between the tone and tactics of Trump's magnation and Sanders' Bros. We don't want to give political cyberbullies undue attention. Indeed, racism and sexism from the cult of Trump is pretty much expected at this point. After all, they are taking cues from their leader. But in the case of Sanders supporters and anyone claiming to be a quote progressive, this type of toxicity should not be tolerated. Bernie Twitter operates under the self-righteous guise of being the true progressives of the Internet. This smugness distinguishes their tweets. But there's nothing progressive about attacking members of your own party who may have reservations about the presidential candidate you're supporting. There's also nothing progressive about having so little tolerance for different opinions that even the hint of opposition is enough to incite a virtual mob as I and even John Legend have discovered firsthand. Yes, because I am sure that John Legend is just so distraught with his millions upon millions of dollars in his mansion. Look, this is a joke. What this argument basically boils down to is I said things about Bernie Sanders that people took issue with and people were mean to me on Twitter. OK, I mean, I don't know what to tell you. I have a YouTube show. I've criticized Tulsi Gabbard, Andrew Yang, Marianne Williamson, and I've also gotten backlash, but that's just part of politics. If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I mean, what are you doing? And he says that, you know, Bernie supporters are basically harassing people. But first and foremost, I think that you are embellishing. And second of all, even if there were a couple of outliers who were harassing you, do you really think that it's appropriate to generalize about the totality of Bernie Sanders base of support? Of course not. That's irrational. And I love how he bemoans the use of our identity politics when we call individuals anti-Semitic, probably half seriously and facetiously and ages. But I mean, you guys do that all the time in this very article, you're saying, oh, well, Bernie's white bros are basically going after women of color. So I mean, you just don't like when we give you a taste of your own medicine. And I'm sorry, the arguments that you all use in mainstream media collectively against Bernie Sanders, it's all dog shit. It comes from the views of people who are elitist, who are comfortable, who have millions upon millions of dollars, who don't actually want to change the status quo. So what you view as basically harassment, what it actually is, is probably people who are just passionate, telling you, no, you're wrong. Here's why you're wrong. That's the way that political Twitter as a whole operates. And I'll get to why this individual isn't even correct, that Bernie supporters are the most hostile online. But before we do that, I want to move on to the next article. This one is from the Daily Beast. Senator Bernie Sanders has called their behavior, quote, disgusting, would be supporters of the Vermont independent have cited them as the reason they can't endorse him. His campaign has even privately apologized to rivals for online pylons that crossed the line into open harassment. And still, the Bernie bro army marches on the intensity of the largely social media driven attacks by Sanders fans has risen sharply in recent weeks, as polling in early states has tightened among the top tier of Democratic candidates. And Justice Sanders himself has pointedly avoided engaging with even the most direct attacks on his candidacy. When Senator Elizabeth Warren accused Sanders of telling her in a private meeting that he didn't believe that a woman could defeat Donald Trump in 2020, the Massachusetts Senator's Twitter feed was deluged with a plague of snake emojis. Oh my God. Even as Sanders called for a de-escalation in hostilities after former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton doubled down on comments in an upcoming documentary that, quote, nobody in Congress likes Sanders. The number of tweets calling her a, quote, bitch skyrocketed to new highs according to an analysis by the Daily Beast. No representatives for any rival presidential campaigns would discuss the issue of, quote, Bernie bro hostility on the record, at least in part, one official working for another Democratic presidential hopeful said, because they didn't want to be on the receiving end of an online walk of atonement. Remember Cersei's Walk of Shame, the official text of the Daily Beast, using a Game of Thrones reference by way of explanation. That's what my mentions would look like. So I mean, this article is incredibly patronizing and it's quite frankly childish. You are using as an example our hostility, the snake emojis. Oh no. Elizabeth Warren was bombarded with snake emojis. The world is ending. I mean, there are people who are literally fucking dying because they don't have health care and we're supposed to pity Elizabeth Warren because she got a lot of snake emojis. Unreal. And apparently the. Number of tweets calling Hillary Clinton a bitch skyrocketed. OK, but did you actually. Control for who is saying that? Was it Trump supporters? Was it just Bernie supporters? I don't really believe that this is representative of Sanders campaign because I run in all of these same sort of circles that these authors don't like and not one attack on Hillary Clinton was called bitch, at least from the people that I follow. And even if let's say that this individual is correct and Hillary Clinton came out and attacked Bernie Sanders and a lot of people called her a bitch, I denounced that. Of course, I don't approve of that type of sexist language. But do you honestly think it's fair to say that this is representative of Bernie's movement as a whole? Of course, it's not. But they're not about being fair. What they are about is communicating a political agenda that harms Bernie Sanders, because if people see that, you know, Bernie Sanders has this huge crowd of toxic people following him, then they're hoping that maybe, you know, since the direct attacks on Sanders won't turn people off. Maybe this will, except you're wrong about that. We have been bombarded with this Bernie bro attack now for years. And Bernie is still rising. Bernie is still rising. And any time there is a passionate support base around a candidate, this is basically how they're characterized as hostile. But Bernie supporters are not hostile. In fact, in 2016, contrary to popular belief, Bernie supporters were less hostile than Hillary supporters. So I mean, you can't say with the straight face that this is an issue that is unique to Bernie Sanders, even if Hillary Clinton likes to make it seem like there's this negative, you know, a hyper masculine culture around him. I mean, most of the people supporting Bernie Sanders are incredibly diverse. And we'll get to that because, demographically speaking, to still maintain that Bernie has these white bros following him around that is factually incorrect. And anyone who still perpetuates that myth is directly spreading misinformation and is being irresponsible because look at this headline from Vice, young women actually make up more of Bernie's base than men do. Pulling shows the 2020 candidates supporters aren't just Bernie bros. This from Vox, Bernie Sanders real base is diverse and very young. New York Magazine says Bernie Sanders has strong Latino support. Politico says why black voters are backing two old white guys. And this article talks about how Bernie Sanders has the second highest amount of support from black voters this time around now that he has more name recognition, and that is mostly divided up generationally. So young black voters overwhelmingly favor Bernie and that basically mirrors the white demographics as well, just older people in general, favorite Biden and younger people favor Bernie Sanders. And as Katie Halper puts it in this article for Common Dreams, how come so many Bernie bros are women and people of color? Despite data to the contrary, the media continues to distort Sanders politics and the diversity of his supporters. Exactly. And that was the last round of Bernie bros smears. So they're still doing it and they will continue to do it because they believe that this will help them defeat Bernie Sanders. This Bernie bro narrative is a myth that was manufactured entirely by the mainstream media to smear Bernie Sanders base and namely primarily smear Bernie Sanders himself. And on top of it, just being politically convenient for them to do this. I think that Natalie Shore, who is a fellow brotherhood of the Bernard member, explains this perfectly. I think the Bernie bro fixation mostly boils down to prominent media figures being so irrationally annoyed by Sanders supporters in their mentions that they inflate it into a very important political problem to assure themselves their irritation is actually moral righteousness. That is exactly it. People were mean to them online as people are online and generally to everyone and they are choosing to make it into an issue that's bigger than it really is. Of course, I don't want anyone to be harassed if they say anything negative about Bernie Sanders. But if you honestly think that you can just say things that are incorrect or misleading about Bernie Sanders and not be called out, you're not going to get a pass for that. We will correct the record. This is what elections are about. You know, tensions are high. There's a lot riding on this election and Bernie supporters rightfully believe that he is the only person who can save not just the country, but the planet. So, I mean, people are going to respond strong and forcefully if you're going to spread bogus bullshit about Bernie Sanders. I mean, think about what we've had to deal with. We had Joy Reid on MSNBC bring on a body language expert to prove that Bernie was lying. We have people on MSNBC, the liberal network, say that Bernie Sanders makes their skin crawl. I mean, do you not understand why people are angered and hypersensitive to any and all critiques of Bernie Sanders? It's because nine times out of 10, these are politically motivated attacks that aren't really based in reality or representative of Bernie Sanders or his supporters. So I mean, this Bernie bro myth, even though it's technically been debunked, it will never die so long as it is convenient to the people who want to take down Bernie Sanders. But I don't know about you all, but I'm not going to trust the daily beast who's owned by IAC, who has Chelsea Clinton on the board. And I'm certainly not going to trust the commentary of a former Breitbart reporter who is basically a Republican party propagandist. No, what I'm going to do is continue to advocate for Bernie Sanders as politely as I can be given the circumstances and as passionately as I possibly can and hope that at the end of the day, we win and you all lose because quite frankly, you kind of deserve it for all of the things that you are putting people through who just want to save and improve the country. It's really sickening if you think about it. These elites think that, you know, this righteous indignation here over Bernie Bros is going to help their case, but it's only proving why we have to defeat all of you because you don't care about policy. You just care about personality and team politics. And I'm sorry if people were mean to you online and that your feelings were hurt. It happens to all of us. But at the end of the day, we're going to advocate for our candidate advocate for yours. Just do that directly rather than trying to smear Bernie Sanders. Just advocate for the candidate who you support. Don't do this pseudo journalism where you try to pass a smear of Bernie Sanders off as objective. Nobody's buying it. And quite frankly, at this point, you know, we're all just sick of it.