Dangit.
I swore I wasn’t going to get involved in this Nevada stuff and write a diary on it. But, when one of my top Progressive heroes, Barbara Boxer, expresses that she had to fear for her own safety at a DEMOCRATIC state convention, there is something seriously wrong here. Enough is enough. We need to forcefully speak up about these bullies and nasty jerks, not make it ok that they were “hangry” (hungry and angry at the same time) and thus justifiably acted like threatening goons.
VIDEO of the interview is embedded in the article below.
California Sen. Barbara Boxer said Wednesday that she felt threatened after outbursts and threats at the Nevada Democratic Convention from supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over the weekend.
"I feared for my safety and I had a lot of security around me," she told CNN's Kate Bolduan on "At This Hour." "I've never had anything like this happen."
Wow. One of the most Progressive politicians in Washington, a hero of Progressive feminism, and hero to Progressives everywhere, had to fear for her safety, fear that she was actually going to be physically harmed?
After Sanders supporters thought the Nevada Democratic Convention was being shut down prematurely, shouting ensued and there were reports of chairs being thrown. The phone number and address of the chairwoman of the Nevada Democratic Party, Roberta Lange, was posted on social media -- prompting a flood of more than 1,000 calls, angry voicemails, text messages and even death threats.
"It was a scary situation," said Boxer, a Hillary Clinton supporter. "It was frightening. I was on the stage. People were six feet away from me. If I didn't have a lot of security, I don't know what would have happened."
A situation so unhinged that the person who has waged so many tough battles for Progressives in her career was fearful, frightened, that something truly bad was going to happen to her. What have we come to? What is going on here?
Boxer said she expressed her concern to Sanders in a phone call Tuesday night. Sanders released a statement Tuesday to say that he does not support violent behavior from his supporters, but also sharply criticized the convention process from Nevada's Democratic party.
"He knows how I feel. He knows that I felt threatened. He knows that it was wrong," Boxer said. "Now we will see, but in my mind when he says he does not support any type of violence, I believe him. And he's got to make sure it doesn't happen. People will follow his lead."
It would have been nice had Bernie said something about Barbara Boxer being caught unwittingly in the angry crossfire and subjected to such frightening treatment by Bernie’s state delegates, but he found it not necessary, apparently, to say anything about her, one of the top Progressives in the country, who is on the same side as Bernie in the fight for Progressive values.
"He was very distressed about it," she said of Sanders' reaction to her on the phone. "He expressed shock his people would do it."
Then why the acerbic statement after? Why not just come out with an unequivocal statement that makes crystal clear where Bernie stands, and what is at stake here?
As Tim Kaine stated about that:
"What he did yesterday was sort of say it's the party's fault," Kaine told CNN. "That deflection of responsibility is not leadership."
Bernie needs to come out once more, condemn what his delegates did at the Nevada state convention in the strongest terms, apologize to Barbara Boxer, publicly, in their behalf, and urge his more militant and overexcited supporters to stop harassing and bullying people. It has gone far enough. Time to put a lid on it, and Bernie is the one who has to do it.