Inside the troubled Bernie Sanders campaign, from Russian bots to American trolls

[TomCADem]

At this point, the main purpose of the BS campaign is to troll Democrats and help Donald Trump. While Biden campaigns against Trump, tries to draw attention back to himself with his campaign surrogates continuing to target Biden. The claim they interested in the health of voters, yet they also insist on continuing to contest and prolong the primary just as pretext for continuing to fundraise, which of course, takes away resources from beating Donald Trump. Finally, while BS will endorse Biden at the last minute, Bernie's surrogates and supporters like Joe Rogan will loudly declare that they will vote for Trump or for Jill Stein.

This shows that 2016 was not an accident. Likewise, to the extent this race is difficult or close, Bernie and his campaign surrogates are to blame.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bernie-sanders-campaign-russia-bots-trolls-bros-2020-election-a9352026.html

Instead, these insiders describe a campaign that has dispensed with the largely positive tone which characterized Sanders' 2016 presidential run in favor of a combative, grievance-driven one. They say it is led by a team of "true believers" who have little experience with presidential campaigns, are too enthralled by Sanders to question or challenge him, and who knowingly wield swarms of angry, harassment-happy pro-Sanders social media users like any other tool in the campaign toolbox for a candidate who, despite claims to the contrary, is perfectly fine with it.

"That's the tone that has been set by campaign leadership," said one Democratic strategist, a Bernieworld veteran. He pointed to the campaign's frequent use of email fundraising solicitations which warn supporters that the "establishment" is trying to keep a rigged system in place by stopping Sanders' candidacy.

He noted that the rhetoric coming from the top of Sanders' campaign had taken a more combative turn since October, when Elizabeth Warren's slide in the polls, Sanders' heart attack, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's endorsement began to propel him back into the top echelons of the Democratic race.

"Clearly, they think it's a winning strategy. Beforehand, people just looked at the campaign as being kind of a little bit mean and nasty, but it's gone up a notch and I think they probably feel justified." But it's not just bombastic fundraising emails that are driving some Sanders supporters to attack, threaten, and harass those deemed to have maligned the Senator in one way or another. In many cases, the victims of what online disinformation experts call "swarms" or "dogpiles" have found themselves singled out for abuse by those who take their cues from campaign staff and prominent surrogates.

[TwilightZone]

1. Rogan has apparently already said he'd vote for Trump over Biden.

So, that worked out well (sarcasm). It led to nothing positive and alienated Sanders allies like AOC.

[Cha]

2. Yeah "..clearly they think it's a winning strategy.."..

How'd that work out for them?

"That's the tone that has been set by campaign leadership," said one Democratic strategist, a Bernieworld veteran. He pointed to the campaign's frequent use of email fundraising solicitations which warn supporters that the "establishment" is trying to keep a rigged system in place by stopping Sanders' candidacy.

And, BS wants to debate again.. No

[brer cat]

3. Always playing the victim.

It's really not a good look for anyone who hopes to be President.

[Blasphemer]

4. That is damning and every word of it is true...

The "revolution" took us from Barack and Michelle Obama consistently asking as to reach for our higher selves, to "go high" when they go low, to a progressive movement that can be described as even worse than the MAGATs in tenor. Progressive politics can and must do better.

[The Magistrate]

5. The 2016 Campaign Was Not Appreciable Different, Sir

This is where it began and will be where it ends.


The 'further left' traditionally take as their chief immediate enemy parties and political figures of the center left, rather than parties and figures of the right. This is because a strong center-left party balks any possibility of revolution. It will have the allegiance of most working people, because it will bring them real benefits in their lives, and by doing so, will shut off influence of the 'further left' by making it clear measures well short of the desperate expedients the 'further left' prescribes for improving the lot of working people are not necessary.

Because center-left parties do uphold the present order of society, the 'further left' sees them as obstacles to its desires quite as much as any reactionary party on the right. Thus you have the 'not a dime's worth of difference' line that views our two major parties as interchangeable. Since the 'further left' cannot comprehend how working people could possibly form an honest attachment to rightist parties, their view comes to be that center-left parties are their chief obstacle to mass support from working people, and they imagine that if center-left parties are broken, they will inherit the mass support of working people, and thus become predominant. Then it will be the time to deal with the reactionary right, but until it is the 'further left' which has undisputed leadership of working people, the reactionary right cannot be dealt with properly.

Properly, here, indicating a policy guided by the slogan quite popular in the radical salad days the sixties and seventies: 'What's the solution? Revolution!' Few nowadays on the 'further left' dream of an actual, barricades and snipers and car-bombs sort of armed revolution, but they do envision a complete overthrow of existing economic and social arrangements. One of the things most people of this orientation fail to understand about working people, and people on the lower rungs of the economic scale generally, is that people who have not much but do have a little are extremely reluctant to put the little they have at risk, and they know that in turmoil and tumult that little will be at risk. There are strains of the 'further left' which do have some understanding of this, and their view is that working people must be made to lose that little they have now, and lose it to the unmitigated predation of the reactionary right. Only then, when they have nothing to lose, will working people be ready for revolution under the banner of the 'further left'. This provides such people still another reason to oppose and demolish center left parties, as these do mitigate the suffering the right would impose on working people, and so are the chief force in balking revolution. These elements view an initial triumph of the reactionary right as an essential step in their own program to achieve revolution, and so are actually quite pleased by the reactionary right achieving political success at the expense of center-left parties.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[betsuni]

6. "This year, you're just getting Bernie, totally unvarnished Bernie."

Other years were bad enough.

[yaesu]

7. russia has been targeting bernie from day one for tRump because they know he would be

unstoppable when it comes to kicking fascist ass.

[TomCADem]

8. Agree. Russia Is Targeting a Lot of Praise Toward Bernie

Because they know that he is a lot easier for Trump to beat. It is tough to understand why so many folks would vote for Bernie knowing that he has spent his career elevating himself by trashing Democrats, which is the reason why Russia gives him positive mentions and uses him as a vehicle to interfere in U.S. elections.