Amanda Marcotte, a political columnist for Salon magazine, stepped into it big time by lobbing this attack against supporters of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, or, as I like to refer to myself and fellow Bernie supporters collectively, Bernie's Army:
The Sanders fanatics are running the same risk (as "PUMA" supporters of Hillary Clinton's failed 2008 presidential bid) now. His biggest stumbling block is the perception that he’s the vanity candidate of the hipster lefties, and especially that he’s the pick of men who like feminism more when it’s pushing birth control pills than pushing women into office. You have to convince the undecideds he’s a candidate for more than the self-important blowhard division of the left. That process is not going to be helped by having the biggest boors hollering about how they’re victims of a conspiracy to suppress the truth about 9/11, err, Sanders polling.
While I don't think that someone like Arnold Palmer would back a Democratic candidate for any public office, Bernie Sanders is, in a way, the Arnold Palmer of presidential politics. When Palmer was in his prime as a professional golfer, he brought large crowds of rabid supporters to every tournament he played in, and his fans became known collectively as Arnie's Army. Much in the same way Arnie drew gigantic crowds at golf courses, Bernie has drawn gigantic crowds at presidential campaign events all across the country.
Amanda Marcotte attacked progressives for being engaged about politics and supporting a presidential candidate that supports most, if not all, of their views and values. Judging a candidate for public office by his or her supporters is absolutely absurd, as pretty much every credible Democratic presidential candidate in recent history has been considerably more level-headed than many of their own supporters. This stands in sharp contrast with someone like Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has been as bigoted and obnoxious as his own supporters. While I've been critical of many, but not all, of Hillary Clinton's supporters for being obnoxious and acting as if Hillary and her faction of the Democratic Party is entitled to run the party forever, I hold that against Hillary's supporters who act that way, not Hillary herself. I've been critical of Hillary on actual political issues, such as her support for a no-fly zone over Syria and her refusal to back reinstating Glass-Steagall regulations on banks and other financial institutions, not over many of her supporters' royalist, obnoxious attitude about Hillary and her presidential capaign. Also, Bernie's Army is not a bunch of conspiracy theorist whackjobs who think that the 9/11 attacks were some sort of false flag operation perpetrated by the federal government. That's not true at all, and most, if not all, of Bernie's Army knows and understands that. Furthermore, Marcotte implied that people who don't back female candidates for public office every single time there's a female candidate running aren't true feminists with her remark that pro-choice men "like feminism more when it’s pushing birth control pills than pushing women into office". I support candidates for public office based on how their political views and values line up with my own political views and values, not by any other standard. True feminism is about supporting gender equality and the right of women to make their own decisions about how they want to live their lives. By that standard, there's a lot of male feminists out there, including Bernie Sanders.
The reason why the corporate media and the pundit class have suddenly become alarmed by the rise of Bernie Sanders in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is because, if he were to win the nomination, that would render the corporate media and the pundit class in this country completely irrelevant in American politics. To put that another way, the corporate media and pundit class is fighting for their own political relevancy in this country, and they're more than willing to smear Bernie and his supporters to do so. The fact that there's a War on Progressives in this country being waged by Republicans, corporate Democrats, the corporate media, the political class, and the pundit class isn't a conspiracy theory, it's the cold hard truth.