Part Two
The summer was over and it was time to get to work on the real business of choosing a primary candidate. Hillary had finished her listening tour and got herself a visit of her own from the protesters attempting to shut down events. This would happen to her more than once, as it did for Sanders. Though she was interrupted, she had a secret weapon: black people. Black women came out in force to defend Hillary, and even at events where protesters attempted to disrupt, black voters attending her event were not having it, and had police show the protesters the door.
Times were rough on the Hillary side and booming for Sanders. With help from the company 'Revolution messaging', Sanders supporters had managed to completely inundate the entirety of the web with cutesy memes and and harsh gif and videos and all types of media showing Hillary in the worst light possible. They also had well done videos of Bernie with his friend and supporter Killer Mike, fundraising and all forms of social media. The Bern was On! He had gotten support from millennials and left leaning white men, now all they needed to get were women, minorities, and everyone else from the Obama coalition. That was when we were introduced to Bros.
Bros bros bros. Once the bros were noticed, the pushback began. We were told they did not exist. It was just a meme. Nobody was being stalked, harassed, doxxed, or anything of the sort, and that anybody even claiming to have been violated were actually the culprits of some big David Brockesque scheme to hurt Bernie with Black voters and women. Nobody was safe from characters assassination, not even Dolores Huerta or John Lewis; heroes who had both nearly given their lives in the pursuit of Justice.
Even the one percenter Susan Sarandon, fresh off her fun time of telling us women who were voting for Hillary that we are 'vagina voters', decided to show off her astounding level of privilege by ranting and yelling at Huerta, proving immediately that Bros are not always male. But that is getting ahead of myself. Let's go back.
Bros. Even Bernie himself admitted their existence.
The bros gave way to swarms and doxxing. Anybody not feeling the bern was at risk of having themselves searched and harassed, contacted offsites and off line, having their info published at secret sites dedicated to harming those who refused to submit to the nonsense of deifying a candidate. Those who talked too much, were too brash, who thought for themselves. To justify their behaviour people began to accuse Hillary voters, especially us black ones of being victims of Stockholm Syndrome.
www.democraticunderground.com/…
We all needed to be educated properly on Bernie by his fans to correct our weak minds from the idea that Hillary would be a good president.
I thought it could not possibly get worse. But it did.
Once the voting started, it became clear that Hillary had a southern firewall. The attacks on black reached such a high crescendo, that even I found myself so angry that I would say increasingly angry, at times ignorant, and once even something unforgivable in my anger. I understand that people will go places that they never thought they would in their lives. We are human, we make mistakes. What I did and do not understand to this day, is why it still continues, even after the primary had gotten to the point where it became clear that Hillary would be our nominee.
Black voters in the South voted for Hillary in higher numbers than they ever voted for Obama over her. All over the nation we went for her at more than a two to one margin. Women broke for her, all demographics besides the ones Bernie started out doing well with, broke for her, and with that we got cries of Confederacy from some of his supporters.
We got claims that the south was just 'conservative' from the campaign. We got claims that he would do better with northern blacks from the candidate himself. (I will not give my opinion on that, draw your own conclusions) The importance of the South, and that large block of black democratic votes were minimized, and the South was won for team Hillary. Once again, blacks were said to have Stockholm Syndrome.
www.democraticunderground.com/…
After that? Every day it was something. People were mad that John Lewis factually stated he never saw Bernie at civil rights events, so the Bros swarmed his facebook, quite a few with very racist messages.
They called HIM, of all people, a SELLOUT
Black journalists reported on his campaign and were swarmed on twitter, characters assassinated, racial slurs flung at them and vituperative insults abounded. All for questioning Bernie. They even bashed and harassed Edub for not endorsing Bernie.
Even average Hillary supporters were harassed and doxxed, posts from other sites, from the past, even posts from the Obama/Hillary primary were dug up to use to silence anyone not feeling the Bern, or were critical, or too supportive of Democrats and the party.
Now that the Primary is over, I look back at this time, at my mistakes, the campaigns' mistakes, at the swarms, bros and doxxers, and I hope that the next time a great wonderful antiestablishment leftist runs, they decide to run a positive and intersectional campaign. Posting on the internet does not a revolution make. This year was hell and many had their privacy violated and were harmed by the stalking and harassment.
My retrospective is at an end. On to the general.