Twitter exploded on Wednesday with the hashtag #BernieLostMe, to signify that thousands of Sanders supporters were dropping him. However, looking at the tweets it became obvious that most of them weren’t actually coming from Sanders’ supporters.
According to Hashtags.org, the #BernieLostMe tweets started appearing on Twitter in the early afternoon, around the same time that CNN contributor Sally Kohn published an op-ed about how the Bernie supporters’ actions at the Nevada Democratic Convention made her lose support for the senator.
Recommended Stories
So it would seem that Kohn’s popular article was a catalyst for the Bernie backlash, and led many more of his supporters to admit that they were no longer “feeling the Bern” for the democratic socialist.
Hashtag.org released the Twitter handles of the most prolific users who tweeted #BernieLostMe, and ironically, they were all either devout Hillary Clinton supporters or non-political trolls.
Some of these accounts do nothing besides tweet or retweet pro-Hillary propaganda.
And oddly enough, pro-Clinton PAC Correct the Record announced in April that it would spend $1 million to fight against pro-Sanders and Trump propaganda on social media.
The Daily Beast reported that Correct the Record pledged the money to “push back against” users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram who attack Clinton.
A hashtag that is tweeted more than 200,000 times in just a few hours doesn’t usually happen organically. Oftentimes the hashtag is pushed by a major media or cultural event, or heavily promoted by companies, groups, or celebrities.
While Kohn’s article may have played into the promotion of the tweet, it would seem possible that a Clinton PAC could have also played a heavy hand.
There have been several other pro-Hillary hashtags that both failed to take off and received immediate backlash from Sanders supporters including #HillarySoQualified.
