Sanders Aide Apologizes To Clinton Staffer For Bernie Bros’ Trolling

[Rose Siding]

Bernie Sanders’ campaign is trying to rein in his unruly online men. Live by the Redditors, die by the Redditors.
....In fact, top Sanders campaign aides have quietly reached out to senior officials in the Clinton campaign and women like Walsh personally to apologize for Bro behavior. Online, aides are pushing their digital community to police itself and keep the Bros quiet. And some volunteer members of Sanders’s digital army are scrambling into action, reporting offenders and moderating bro-y posts.
Still, the Bros break through, and there’s real worry in corners of Sanders-world about it.
On Thursday, the BBC catalogued social media attacks on black pundits and women who opine on Bernie. Mashable posted a ton of screenshots of Bro attacks Friday morning.
...
None of this is a surprise to people who work in the Sanders campaign or support it online, and the fact that it continues to exist worries them. Every minute and every caucus-goer counts in an Iowa race that Sanders alternated between calling “nip and tuck” and “tied” on the trail Thursday.....
The Iowa town hall hosted by CNN, the last nationally televised forum where all three candidates would share the same stage before the Iowa caucuses, was seen by all sides as a tipping point for the Bros — on Twitter, they ravaged Clinton supporters while Sanders backers looked on in dismay.
Behind the scenes, Casca reached out to the Clinton rapid response director, Christina Reynolds, and to Walsh, via Twitter Direct Message to apologize for the bro behavior.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/the-bernie-bros?bftwnews&utm_term=.hyoGA3Xlm#.govZYP20K

[72DejaVu]

1. The guy in charge of apologies

is the only guy in the Sanders campaign with any job security.

[Agnosticsherbet]

3. As for thsoe appologies...

My father used to say: "Sincerity is everything, once you can fake that you've got it made."

[Cha]

10. LOL!

[Agnosticsherbet]

2. Sanders doesn't have control of his campaign...or his surrogates...

[72DejaVu]

4. They don't want to stop the attacks

They just don't want their fingerprints on them.

[okasha]

16. Word.

[Hekate]

17. Word two

[kaiden]

20. Word Three.

[asuhornets]

33. Word Four

[wildeyed]

35. Yep

Plausible Deniability. This has been going on since summer. They knew and didn't care then. Only when it attracts widespread notice do they act.

[Cha]

36. Too late.

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. Not much different from "Putin's Online Troll Army", but an apology is an apology (I guess).

I still say his "supporters" are his biggest liability. Coming into the African American Group and calling us "n***ers" is not cool, and that's nothing compared with the racist crap thrown at AA bloggers caught on the receiving end of BS' online trolls.

[kjones]

19. Wait, what happened in the AA Group?!?

...just...just damn.

[BlueCaliDem]

23. It's true. I've seen it myself. My jaw literally dropped open when I read those posts, and although

some of them got successfully hidden, a small fraction survived an alert. It was unreal. The jury system is, in my opinion, broken.

When you have a deluge of non-Democrats allowed to sign up and stay on this site, posing as Democrats (even though they'll blatantly tell you they're not and would never be), then you allow room for Republicans and RW Libertarians to infiltrate and poison the site from inside-out.

Between 2004 and 2007, this site truly was a site to support and strategize for the Democratic Party, but since Senator Obama won the election, things changed for the worse. I was shocked to see how much when I returned after the 2008 elections. It was around that time when I realized that HuffPo was far more supportive of Democrats than the site that carries its name - but then again, HuffPo had community moderators (I was one of them) that didn't tolerate RW crap.

[Cha]

37. An "apology" on practically the eve of the Iowa Caucuses after all this time? They should have

started after the #BLM attacks and nipped it in the bud or at least tried.

They'd have some credibility then.

Tarheel

[Tarheel_Dem]

38. As soon as I saw the crowd at his announcement, I knew what we were in for.

BS' audiences are strikingly similar to Donald Trump's.

[Cha]

39. Didn't BS say he was going after trump voters?

[Tarheel_Dem]

41. Their "voters" are interchangeable. Lots of fratboys who think it's cool to say what's on their....

minds, no matter how disgusting.

[Cha]

42. yeah, no fucking filter.

[Treant]

6. Perhaps they should ask themselves

whether the fact that they have "bros" indicates some very severe messaging problem?

Naw, that requires too much introspection. Let's just apologize and "move on." Just don't expect me to forget.

[Cha]

40. Really. Dead on.

[riversedge]

7. That was a very informative article. I had read that Joan Walsh got hit by Sanders fans

yesterday. So sad.



The bros who love Bernie Sanders have become a sexist mob

[dlwickham]

8. Not just the bros

I've seen more than a few women on places like Facebook who use the same rhetoric against Hillary that the bros do. Women can be sexist against other women and this campaign proves that.

[BlueCaliDem]

9. Appears as if that campaign has a group of devolving supporters. Aren't we supposed Evolve?

Another reason I won't support Sanders in the primaries. I don't want to be associated with the"bros".

[Treant]

11. He's a Purity Candidate

(Supposedly, although a closer look and the purity gets rather...impure, let's just say).

Like any other group that demands purity, those who are perceived as impure will be thrown out. You and I, for instance, are the Whores of Babylon for supporting Mrs. Clinton and are gone the instant we open our mouths.

However, over time they're also starting to drive away those who aren't very firm in their undying support, or dare to air the slightest criticism of the Bernie campaign. I've seen Bros turn on a person for faintly suggesting that, just perhaps, Bernie should be asking the SuperPACs not to spend money on him.

Post getting rid of those, anybody perceived as "not quite pure enough" will be next. They aren't really Bernie supporters, after all, not being of the purest vintage.

You get left with a small, ineffective group of extremely obnoxious people.

So yes, the Bernie campaign is starting to look a lot more like a left-wing example of Westboro Baptist than anything else.

And that's sad. It could have been a good thing, but nobody in the campaign has done anything to stop the purity purges.

[Cha]

13. #berniesopure

Meanwhile~



#I'veWithHer

Treant

[Treant]

15. #ImWithHer

Hi, Cha!

[BlueCaliDem]

24. Just as many of us have suspected: they're "purity" supporters. I've called them out on that

and then get the run-around (denials, ad hominem attacks, deflections - the usual stuff), but despite their best efforts, they weren't fooling anyone.

[Treant]

27. The deflection and denial are telling

I honestly can't get much of an answer out of most Bernie supporters about problems with the campaign and the candidate. It's always, "Clinton is so much worse!"

Well, I'm aware of that opinion and don't happen to share it. What I'm looking for is for them to convince me that Bernie is actually better...because so far, I don't see it.

[riversedge]

30. Vile comments make for a vile mide.

[BlueCaliDem]

32. I'm not quite sure what a "mide" is, but

I think I agree with you.

[Cha]

12. Of course she did.. why would they leave her out of their personal attacks?!

Thank you for that, rivers!

[Stuckinthebush]

25. My god

This is out of hand. It makes me physically ill!

[Cha]

14. Meanwhile sanders online supporters continue to deny it. Or have they changed their

tune since this came out?



#I'mWithHer~Mahalo, Rose

[Hekate]

18. They damn well should be worried, since the rest of the online world resembles DU GDP. At this point

...."apologies" are not going to cut it. The problem with performing character assassination on Hillary's supporters and Hillary, is the way it ultimately rebounds not just on the perps but on Sanders. The worst part, as any sane and rational person understands, is how it damages the entire Democratic field.

But witch hunters and their ilk have never cared about consequences like that.

The more they carry on about "revolution" and behave the way they are behaving, the more I think of the sheer destruction of the Cultural Revolution in China.

[72DejaVu]

21. Woot! There it is!

I've been trying to avoid that comparison, but it seems increasingly apt.

[still_one]

22. This has been going on for sometime here. Whenever a positive thread is provided about

Hillary, on a forum outside of the Hillary group, it never fails to ignite a snide or disparaging remark by the usual suspects.

[Iliyah]

26. It won't stop

[Ellen Forradalom]

28. Oh, trolls are a problem now that a man's getting hurt

[Rose Siding]

29. Good point

Now that it might hurt him, it gets addressed.

[pandr32]

31. While a late apology is good

Sanders needs to remember "you reap what you sow"--he owns this.

[Walk away]

34. Read the comment section on the NYT endorsement of Hillary....

it's none stop republican lies but the are almost all Bernie supporters. It's pretty disgusting. You don't see Hillary supporters swarming pro-Bernie media with accusations of Communism and misogyny.

They aren't sorry. It's how they are got as far as they have.