 So over the course of the last month, since Bernie Sanders has really started to surge, we've seen the return of the so-called Bernie Bro myth and narrative. Even if demographically speaking and statistically speaking, that doesn't reflect reality, the media has wanted to bring that back in hopes of, I don't know, maybe dissuading people from supporting Bernie Sanders because his supporters are so quote-unquote toxic. But regardless, this week, CNN and MSNBC, they really did everything in their power to really sell us on that narrative. And they did this by using what they believe to be evidence, that Bernie supporters are absolutely toxic and not only that, they are bullying and harassing people online. Now their evidence of said behavior, well according to an investigation by CNN, emojis. Bernie supporters are bullying and harassing people, and I use those terms loosely, with emojis, specifically snake and rat emojis. Take it away CNN. Say one thing bad about Bernie Sanders online anywhere and Strident Sanders supporters may attack you personally. Multiple targets describe to CNN what they call a Sanders swarm, an online army of supporters on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, some even digging into their personal lives, trying to out their identity, bully and frighten them into silence. MIT lecturer Michael Trice says over and over again, the bullying works. The type of harassment that occurs, it is deeply hurtful, it's scary, it's frightening. Personally, I've had my job threatened online. Many people have experienced far, far worse and unless someone is willing to do more, then yes, it can only escalate because it's effective. An outspoken Elizabeth Warren supporter whose daughter with Down syndrome is just recovering from cancer was told, you're stupid like your retard kid. Too bad the cancer didn't kill her. Sanders opponents are told to eat this poop and shut the F up. This dying of ALS tweeted support for Elizabeth Warren and was told, go F yourself. When the working families party also endorsed Warren, it was swarmed. Bloodless scumbag hacks, corrupt, shameless. One user told the group's leader who is black, slave masters had coerced his endorsement. The abuse so bad, Sanders had to respond tweeting that that ALS activist was actually a friend and in another tweet, the candidate signaled to his followers that this campaign condemns racist bullying and harassment of any kind. It's not clear if the Sanders followers responsible are listening. In recent weeks trolling Senator Elizabeth Warren as a snake and in post after post labeling Mayor Pete Buttigieg a rat. Two victims of this tell CNN they were so afraid of the online attacks they faced, they don't even want us to describe the circumstances for fear it would start up again. They both just questioned the politics of Bernie Sanders in a public setting and their personal lives were exposed and attacked. Ben Decker who studies online harassment and threats says it's unclear how the swarms start. But Sanders supporters have been organizing in Facebook, Twitter and Reddit communities since 2016 and have only grown stronger. And while social media harassment happens across the political spectrum, Decker says the sheer number of Sanders online supporters sets them apart from other followers. I think anytime where you have far greater numbers, you have far greater potential for harm. And in the online community there are far greater Sanders supporters. Decker used Facebook's data to analyze all the pages created by the supporters of Democratic presidential candidates and found the pro-Sanders pages have two and a half million followers with nearly 58,000 posts in a three month period, far more than all the other Democratic candidates combined. If only a fraction of those engage in nasty comments, they're still capable of bullying critics off social media. Now I'm not going to try to overly psychoanalyze that segment, I don't necessarily know if they were helping that Bernie Sanders supporters would see this and take it to heart and just settle down and be nicer. But what I love, what I think is poetic justice is that CNN got to experience the Sanders swarm first hand because when you look at the CNN segment posted to YouTube, it got ratioed into oblivion with 7,000 total dislikes, of course, including yours truly as well. And it is comical to me that they are with a straight face trying to convince people that snake emojis and rat emojis are tantamount to bullying. If you're that fragile, how are we going to expect you to be able to go up against Donald Trump? You're going to cry when his supporters call you a cuck. I mean, unbelievable. So we're supposed to just accept that what this is is bullying and harassment because it's a swarm, right? The statistics that they provide you with, they show that Bernie Sanders has the largest social media following of all the candidates. But rather than actually doing a qualitative analysis, they just cherry pick a couple of examples of snake emojis and whatnot. But the problem is that we already know that you're full of shit because back in 2016, there was a qualitative analysis done that found that Bernie Sanders supporters were actually the least hostile online. I repeat, the least hostile online and Hillary supporters were more aggressive and they were only less aggressive than Trump supporters. But in spite of that, of course, we all know the entire media narrative built around 2016 was that aggressive Bernie bros were harassing mostly female people of color, Hillary Clinton supporters. We know that that's bogus. But nonetheless, they still push that narrative and now they're trying to do it again. So why should we believe you? Like you haven't actually conducted a qualitative and quantitative analysis. This is just you taking a couple of screenshots crying about how Bernie supporters were mean to you. I mean, look, listen, there are books, such as manufacturing consent that we've read, that we know about, and how the mainstream media, the corporate owned media tries to create these narratives. They try to manufacture consent and get people ultimately to believe things that serve the narrative of corporate America. So when you say something about Bernie Sanders and we correct you, that's not a swarm. That's you just getting called out because you said something wrong. So riddle me this, when you have someone on CNN saying that Bernie Sanders makes their skin crawl, what are we supposed to do? When you have body language experts coming on national television to prove that Bernie is a liar, what are we supposed to do? Just shut up and take it. That's honestly what they want. They want us to shut up and take it. That's the end goal of this. They want to communicate to us that if we speak up and defend Bernie, we're making him look bad. So if we want to win, maybe we should shut the fuck up. Well, no, because if you admit that it's working, we're going to keep doing it because this is not harassment. I mean, you can go to any one of my YouTube comments or my Facebook comments and you can see hatred. You can Google me and find hatred, but guess what? I mean, that's part of the process. Like we all get this and, you know, there's this underlying assumption that this is mostly young millennials and the mainstream media, you know, they'll just as quickly run away with the narrative that we're overly sensitive snowflakes, but at the same time, we're also super hyper aggressive Bernie bros. And I love that they cite one of the examples from a Bernie Sanders supporter who is also a trans artist. Her name is Elsie. And at the time that they posted that, you know, that that rat, the picture of Pete, which is amazing, by the way, had only had 13 likes, but now it has more than 20,000 likes. So the effect that they wanted this to have, I mean, the opposite happened, obviously, needlessly to say, needless to say. And, you know, they do cite examples of, you know, well, this one person tweeted out this thing to Adi Barkin, who's a Medicare for all activists who endorsed Elizabeth Warren, where he said, go fuck yourself. Right. And we don't condone that. And I specifically remember people being disappointed with Adi Barkin's endorsement, but still respecting him and respecting his wish because this individual is an activist who's dying. So of course, we're not going to brood him and bombard him. And I remember Sanders supporters being really like respectful. But I mean, of course, you're going to find one person like every. You can basically cherry pick every single movement or anything. Cherry pick whatever you want and try to use that as an example to generalize, but understand that that's just one example. And that one example does not denote general applicability. But CNN doesn't really understand that because they want to push a certain narrative. And the narrative is that Bernie Brothers are evil. And if you support Bernie Sanders, then you must be condoning this. And Bernie Sanders also, he goes on to say in that segment, really should be doing more to condemn this. He has already, but he should be doing more to condemn this. So I mean, this is just this is the perfect example of manufacturing consent. This is propaganda. But CNN wasn't alone because MSNBC also decided to attack supporters of a major Jewish candidate by comparing them to Nazis. I kid you not, Sanders supporters are like digital brown shirts. This is from MSNBC. There is no star, but this is this is the other thing. This is what I'm hearing just sort of out and about the country. A lot of people are saying a lot of very enthusiastic voters are saying, yeah, you all figure it out and I'll figure it out once you guys have decided. I don't think it's so much that people aren't excited about who's running. They may have their excitement spread across multiple people and they're waiting for somebody else to make the decision. Because you can't tell me that people aren't excited about Bernie Sanders. That may not be the majority, but you can't say people aren't excited about. That's his advantage here. Bernie Sanders has a huge advantage in New Hampshire, which he had, you know, which he did so well in 60 percent in four years ago. And he's still local. He's their enthusiastic and they will not be denied. And that's the other problem going forward. There is going to be a huge resentment if some huge pool of money goes elsewhere. If Bloomberg makes a move and Biden collapses, if there's a stop burning movement, that is going to be to hell with pay with the Bernie people, because they are so committed. And I want to bring up something that Jonathan last put in the full work today, and it was about how in Ruth, we've all been on the receiving end of the Bernie online brigade. And here's what he says. He says, no other candidate has anything like this sort of digital brown shirt brigade, I mean, except for Donald Trump. The question no one is asking is this, what if you can't win the presidency without an online mob? What if we now live in a world where having a bullying agro social media army running around, popping anyone who sticks their head up is either an important ingredient for or a critical market marker of success? Wow. I know everybody's freaking out about this, but you saw the MAGA rally that's prepared around here. There are people coming from three or four states on that. That's real. And, you know, that is, this is like Bernie. So I don't really take issue with the substance there. I think that you need to have a lot of enthusiastic online support to run an effective campaign. But you're comparing Bernie Sanders supporters, Bernie's Jewish to Nazis, digital brown shirts. Does anybody just stop and think at how disgusting they're being? Like you want us to reflect on our behavior, but do you ever reflect on your behavior? I will say unequivocally, I condemn bullying and harassment and doxing and brigading. Will you condemn any of the propaganda that you see against Bernie Sanders supporters? When do you guys have to take responsibility for, you know, any of the people to judge supporters? Who spread misinformation? I've been smeared by them. People to judge supporters have laughably called me homophobic on numerous occasions, right? But you don't see me crying about it. This is part of politics, but yet it's only the Bernie Sanders supporters who are demonized. But one good takeaway I like from that is that Andrea Mitchell said that, you know, if there is some sort of concerted effort to stop Bernie, there would be hell to pay with the Bernie people because they're so committed. That made me feel good because. She's she's absolutely right. Of course, there would be hell to pay if you think that we're going to get cheated two elections in a row and just take that lying down. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. And what we really see is this effort by Democratic Party loyalists to police Bernie Sanders supporters. And as, you know, this debacle unfolds in Iowa as we get fucked over and we watch it happen in real time, we are supposed to assure the Democratic Party establishment that, you know, we'll be supportive, we'll be loyal, you're going to vote blue no matter who, right? You're going to vote blue no matter who. Please tell me, tell me, you're going to support the nominee, right? If it's not Bernie, how about you fuck off? How about you fuck off and you give us some fucking respect because Bernie Sanders has created the most diverse, youngest, most enthusiastic coalition. And all we get from the media rather than celebrating what is happening and what we've accomplished. We get denigrated. We get attacked as this hateful mob when this supposedly, you know, bullying and harassing community of Sanders supporters is fighting to save people's lives, fighting to save the planet, fighting for health care. So it really is, it's morally reprehensible. It is morally reprehensible. And Chuck Todd pointed out, we've all been on the receiving end of the online Bernie Brigade, except the problem with that, Todd, is that it's not like we're just attacking you because you said, well, you know, I don't like the way that Bernie Sanders dresses. Like you will literally lie about Bernie Sanders, spread misinformation and propaganda about his policies. Like Chuck Todd, I specifically remember, was spreading misinformation about Medicare for all, making it seem as if there's no way to pay for it. I mean, this is all propaganda that originates from these private insurance companies and their corporate, you know, lobbyists and whatnot. So I mean, for you to just make it seem as if you're innocent, how about this? How about we'll all admit that we're guilty? We'll all admit collectively that maybe we're all guilty of something here. Maybe we all can treat people better, but you wouldn't do that. The mainstream media and their pundits wouldn't do that. It's just Bernie Sanders supporters who have to be demonized. So listen, don't buy it. Don't believe that snake emojis and rat emojis are harassment because they're not like shitposting and trolling. I mean, what do you want us to do? Like that's all that's harmless. That is harmless. And if you can't take the heat, then get the fuck out of the kitchen. Like that's not harassment. I condemn any instances of real harassment and doxing. Right? I don't I don't condone any sort of like bullying people into silence where they're saying, hey, if you if you don't shut up, I'm going to leak your information. Like, of course, we don't condone that. And the most prominent Sanders supporters wouldn't condone that. But they're looking for everything. They have a magnifying glass and they're scouring all corners of the internet to find any snake emoji or rat emoji that they can use as evidence that we're bullying people so that way, you know, we shut the fuck up. But it's not going to happen. You're not going to convince us that we're bad people because we know we're not bad people. And when we just post snake emojis and rat emojis, that's not bullying or harassment. And you're being really fucking stupid to suggest that it is. So the last thing I'll say is that I really wish that CNN would have used one of my snake emoji tweets at Pete with a judge. I knew that they would come up with some type of segment, not necessarily CNN, but some media outlet would complain about the snake emojis and the rat emojis. I wish they would have used mine because I'm unapologetic and I'm not stopping. And look, we're not going to harass people, but are we going to troll and have fun online? Yes. Is that going to lead to you demonizing us? Yes, but you're going to do that anyway. Like even if 99.9 percent of Sanders supporters were not active online at all, you'd find that 0.01 percent and you'd use that to represent our whole movement because your goal isn't to do some sort of qualitative analysis about the aggressiveness of Bernie Sanders supporters. Your goal is to take him down and take us down as a result, but we're not buying it and you can keep trying to smear us. But I mean, we don't give a shit. So enjoy the Sanders swarm and all the dislikes dipshits because you earned that.