Has anyone here even bothered to investigate who exactly these so-called BernieBros are? Because I have. And from what I can tell, they don’t exist.
Fact: There are no “BernieBros” out there somewhere. They are not a group. They don’t have members and no one self-identifies as a “BernieBro.” I have spent hours scouring over tweets and posts and BernieBros sightings, and I’ve yet to find one single real life person who even fits the BernieBro description.
What I’ve found instead is a phantom that only seems to exist in the minds of Establishment journalists and Hillary operatives.
In one piece with the promising title, “Bernie Bros Explained” written by Dara Lind at Vox, they bizarrely used a photo of some unknown Bernie supporters and then captioned an apology to the guys in the photo saying, ‘Sorry, I needed needed a photo for the piece.’
I would think this was amusing and cute except for two problems: they used a pic of some dudes who reminded me of the Brooks Brothers Riot, doing high-5s like they were at a football game and geared up to go out and harass some women, and they put the disclaimer in a small, grayed out font, ensuring that most people won’t even bother to read it and will just see these jock looking assholes/BernieBros.
But, of course, the real problem is that in all the reports about so-called BernieBros, there is never a real face. An anonymous Twitter user, who may or may not be a real Bernie supporter, is often the culprit. But how easy is it to create a fake account and pretend to be someone to make them look bad. This doesn’t require some conspiracy. It just requires a creep and an internet connection.
Recently the progressive website Common Dream caught a Jewish college student posting anti-Semitic stuff to, apparently, try to make readers of Common Dreams appear to be a bunch of anti_Semites. From the article describing their investigation of this troubled person:
Like many other news websites, Common Dreams has been plagued by inflammatory anti-Semitic comments following its stories. But on Common Dreams these posts have been so frequent and intense they have driven away donors from a nonprofit dependent on reader generosity.
A Common Dreams investigation has discovered that more than a thousand of these damaging comments over the past two years were written with a deceptive purpose by a Jewish Harvard graduate in his thirties who was irritated by the website's discussion of issues involving Israel.
His intricate campaign, which he has admitted to Common Dreams, included posting comments by a screen name, "JewishProgressive," whose purpose was to draw attention to and denounce the anti-Semitic comments that he had written under many other screen names.
Let’s not be stupid. Everyone has figured out that the internet is a easy way to spread messages anonymously. Many of us have legitimate reasons to post anonymously. Some wish to use it to cause harm.
A few years ago, a big story at this site went viral with the news that in confidential emails that were downloaded by the hacking group Anonymous, a manager at intelligence/defense contractor company HBGary had actually infiltrated Daily Kos and was working on so-called “persona management software” that would allow someone to secretly run multiple sockpuppet accounts and switch between them easily so they could infiltrate internet forum and disrupt or influence discussions. From that Daily Kos posting:
Take the surprisingly overlooked revelation that Aaron Barr, CEO of HB Gary Federal, told a colleague that he intended to "post on the HBGary Fed and HBGary website, Daily Kos, tweet, and post on the anonymous FB page.” Here's the whole excerpt as posted by Crowdleaks.org:
Aaron Barr “They still don’t get it. They think all I know is their irc names!!!!! I know their real fing names.” he brags to a colleague. “My plan is to post on the HBGary Fed and HBGary website, Daily Kos, tweet, and post on the anonymous FB page.” He goes on to reiterate “No they are not freaked out. They don’t get it…Greg will tell you. They think I have nothing but a heirarchy based on IRC aliases!”
We need to stop pretending that we can believe or trust anything posted anonymously on the internet. People have figured out the whole false flag idea — which dates back centuries. It’s not a conspiracy theorist term. It was used to describe a naval warfare tactic. And it doesn’t require a conspiracy or even, apparently, any intelligence at all.
We all remember this little genius, who decided to smear Obama and his supporters by first getting a friend to assault her, and then scratching Obama’s last initial in her face.
In a supreme case of ‘would be funny if it weren’t so creepy’, she used a mirror reflection to guide her and therefore the “B” was backwards. This of course provided police with a very strong clue that she had done it herself and she was charged.
How hard would it be to smear Bernie supporters in the same way? Is it happening? Who knows. But I sure don’t trust any claim about any anonymous commenter somewhere doing things that help any political campaign. And neither should you.
The BernieBro Is Born
The term “BernieBros” was invented from thin air by a writer for The Atlantic named Robinson Meyer. In his attack on male Bernie supporters, he unleashed a bunch of vitriol and painted a cartoon image of a fictional, young, male Bernie supporter.
There are no on the record quotes. No citations of fact. Just a pure, hate-filled take-down piece on his own invented character — or maybe some Bernie supporter named Steve that he met in a bar, hated, and decided to enshrine in shit before his alcoholic haze wore off. Who knows. But it wasn’t journalism. It was a smear that, typically, desperate Hillary campaigners and their friends in establishment media outlets like the New York Times have seized on.
The reason so many have latched on to it, and possibly the reason it was invented in the first place for all I know, is because it fits a narrative the Clinton campaign has been desperately trying to push from the beginning — a divisive and destructive narrative that pits liberal women against liberal men and defines this whole campaign as a battle of the sexes. It’s been there all along — Hillary, the champion of women’s causes (except she’s not really), battler against the white male oppressors (except they are her primary financial backers) and great leader of the feminist movement (except she wasn’t).
And here comes the little white guy, trying to stop the inevitable. They really thought they would be able to use that. They’re still trying. And if Bernie’s real campaign and supporters don’t wise up, they may succeed.
The BernieBros thing is one of the sleaziest campaign tricks I’ve seen. And brilliant. Notice it requires no evidence. I’ve been HR-ing people for months as I observe this trend of blanket smear against Bernie supporters. “Bernie supporters are mean, rude, sexist, etc...”
But the thing with blanket smears is one never has to cite a specific case. Over and over I’ve asked, “If a Bernie supporter got out of line (and I’m sure it’s happened), then link to it and call them out then and there.”
Not once has anyone met the challenge.
Today, another blanket smear, using the term “BernieBros”, a term that Bernie supporters and all decent people who value honesty and integrity should find offensive, found its way to the Rec List. This time, with a lot of new references to supposed BernieBro sightings.
And it’s like a UFO sighting. Because every time I follow it up to see an actual BernieBro, I’m always disappointed. It turns out to be two paper plates glued together. Or just a rumor.
Enough.
It’s time for people to stop tolerating this baseless, insipid smear. BernieBros isn’t a group. There are no real people out there calling themselves BernieBros.
It’s a name that was made up to, once again, attack Bernie Sanders by way of his supporters.
The latest display of this smear campaign, in the form of a recommended diary here, actually had the gall to claim that there’s a “BernieBros phenomena” that “the media is starting to notice.”
It’s incredible. The only BernieBros “phenomena” is the use of the term BernieBros by the media that is supposedly “starting to take notice.”
In a competition with Karl Rove to come up with the cleverest, most sleazy, scumbag way to attack your opponent, this diarist would surely win.
And yet, the tip jar in said smear diary only had 5 HRs.
So it looks like lowlife, sleazy lying and smearing is the new norm at Daily Kos. And Sanders supporters are like defenseless lambs who have no idea what shit storm is about to happen, or how to defend against it.