Bernie Sanders: The GamerGate of Politics

The lowing of the bros has reached all new heights as the electoral math shifts from Bernard to Joseph. On social media much of the focus is on the "meanness" of the Bernie faction--and this spilled over to the Elizabeth Warren exit interview where she called out Sanders people specifically:

Anyone who has spent any time on social media knows this to be the case. In fact, the online Sanders movement bears some startling similarities to the previous online harassment campaign of note: GamerGate.

If you don't know what GamerGate is, it's too long to go into here--there are various explainers that you can look at--but the key things to understand for this is:

• It was a movement that professed to be about one thing (ethics in games journalism) but was, in action, quite about something else (harassing female game designers and some feminist game critics). 
• There was a notable gender-split: most games journalists are male. The most prominent harassment targets were female.
• It had no real central leaders so each individual professed no responsibility for what the group did--in other words: "you don't get to complain about GamerGate to me--because I didn't harass anyone."
• The harassers claimed THEY were the ones being bullied (by "big media" and "feminism" and "the gaming industry"). It was a grievance engine.
• When you kicked the tires of GamerGate you discovered that with the exception of the absolute worst (death threats, SWATTING--and sometimes not even then) while the GG'er "did not condone harassment" they felt the victims either "deserved it" or at least "had brought it on themselves."

How does this apply to Bernie and Company? Well, there are some pretty clear parallels.

• The common pivot-move is identical: complain about Bernie Behavior and you will hear "Oh--people were mean to you online and now you don't want poor people to have health care? Huh?" Just as no one was actually against 'ethics in games journalism' just about everyone in the conversation (Bros do not attack MAGA-world--only allies) wants poor people to have health care. This pivot is disingenuous and identical to what GamerGate did.
• There is a notable split of people complaining about Sander's supporter's online behavior--the attacks on Hillary and then on Warren were often misogynist in nature. We don't have stats--but it seems clear that simply based on the state of play there is a large tilt towards anti-women-sentiment in the Bernie Bro brigading.
• The Bernie Bro group DOES have central leaders: Bernie himself, his surrogates, and, for example, the million-dollar-a-year ChapoTrapHouse ("dirtbag left") podcast celebrities. Indeed, while Bernie Sanders himself doesn't control every supporter, this makes it worse. Bernie and his surrogates have gone on Chapo to be interviewed. Chapo, by their own naming and words, support harassment of non-bernie voters. They are champions of bad behavior. When Bernie goes on their show he's endorsing them (and his surrogates are part of the bad behavior as well). The harassment isn't organized--but the sentiment is top-down.
• The belief that EVERYONE is just as bad and WE ARE DESPISED BY MODERATES and THE CORRUPT DNC ROBBED US--and so on--is a foundation of the movement. Big Media, again, is the problem--and when other Democratic candidates dropped and endorsed Biden we saw a spike of absolute outrage--"They can't do that--it's cheating." That reaction tells you everything you need to know about the Bernie movement (which is, by explicit definition) about taking on and crushing the Democratic establishment ("Bend the Knee" in Chapo / Game of Thrones speak)
• At the bottom? Well, 'Liz isn't progressive, Biden is a racist pedophile (oddly, GamerGate had a big thing about their enemies being pedophiles to--and this harkens back to Nazi era propaganda which did the same thing). The Political Machines (Union organizers, etc.) were working against the Will of the People and deserved to be called out for it. Victims of Doxing? Well, that one Twitter guy was employed by Big Pharma . . .he deserved it.

The Bernie Fallacy

As almost always, though, while the Tru-Bro will deny the above similarities because [ lots of fiddly reasons ] there is a tell. There's something the Bernie movement does that incontrovertibly puts the lie to all their denials. What is it here? The Omnivore will show you!

The (Mostly) Unspoken Truth

When Trump defeated Hillary--drawing the electoral equivalent of a royal flush--there was actual celebration on the Bernie Bro left. Take That, Democrats! The thinking, of course, was that 4 years of Trump would force Democrats to Bend The Knee and give us Bernie. Her loss was used as proof that she was a bad candidate foisted on the nation by a corrupt DNC and now the piper? He was bein' paid.

When you tried to point out that Bernie non-voters and Bernie->Trump voters (wtf??) were numerically significant enough to hand the nomination to Trump by themselves (plus Jill Stein voters, and so on--not to mention the Comey-Letter, Russian Interference, and Facebook complicity in Fake News) they would tell you: no--it was the DNC. It was Hillary. BEND THE KNEE.

So now, here we are, cycle two--about to nominate !Bernie again (that's logical notation for Not-Bernie). What behavior shows us that they're lying about what the movement is about? Oh--that's easy.

If you wanted to save people's lives and give poor people health care, who would you go after first? People on your side who sat the last election out? People on your side who for reasons that boggle the mind voted for Trump? Or would you go after Democrats who were dedicated to Voting Blue No Matter Who but didn't necessarily have Sanders as their first choice?

The answer is simple and awful: you would clean up your own house first. After all, the BernOuts who stayed home unarguably got people killed by not electing a president who would strengthen the ACA--but rather one who would sabotage and try to destroy it. The BernOuts who voted for Trump because "he was making a lot of sense" (wtf??) would be excoriated because they were dupes and fools--because they were taken by con-men--and they would be told in no uncertain terms that a 2nd Trump administration would be a Poor-People and Health Care disaster (in fact, with the looming Corona Virus, the BernieOrBust coalition may have the blood of thousands of Americans on their hands alone).

But they don't. Why not?

(a) They need the Threat of Trump to force the Bent Knee. If they were all saying "Vote Blue No Matter Who" then they might not get The Great Man (Bernie) they need. So they have to threaten ("It's not me--I'll vote for whoever--but muh friends--teh OTHAR PROGRESSIVES--You KNO THEY MAY NOOT!! THEY WILL NOTT! SO U BETTER BEND TEH KNEE, DEM-SCUM!")

(b) It, of course, turns out not to be about health care for poor people at all. It's about assuaging the narcissistic wound inflicted by the DNC now giving them enough lip-suction. If you care about health care for poor people you will Vote Blue No Matter Who in order to save as many people as you can.

But you don't. That's the Tell.