The public feud between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders seemed to be retreating back into a cold war after a contentious week. But never one to sit out a news cycle, Hillary Clinton appeared keen to revive it.
In a glossy cover feature promoting a four-hour documentary about the failed presidential hopeful, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that Clinton doubled down on her characterization of the Vermont senator in the Hulu production.
“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him,” Clinton said of her 2016 primary challenger. “Nobody likes him. Nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney, and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
While Sanders’s millions of donors would beg to differ that “nobody likes him,” Clinton is correct that he’s a career politician who’s managed to become a millionaire with three homes despite never working a real job in his life. She’s also correct that unlike Joe Biden or even his younger competitors like Amy Klobuchar, Sanders has barely achieved anything at all in his nearly 30 years on the Hill.
Clinton might be the single worst person to deliver this message, but she did explicate one simple truth that could prove the death knell of his campaign. When asked if she would endorse and campaign with him should he win the nomination, Clinton said:
It’s rich hearing this from Clinton, who armed herself with the most insufferable cadre of K Street elitists, eager to scream “sexism” and then “Russia” at the first mention of Clinton’s failings. But while the Democratic establishment may be insufferable and self-indulgent, the 2020 reboot of the Sanders campaign has somehow managed to wring out the hopeful and ambitious nature of his 2016 bid, leaving something vengeful and vicious in its stead.
The prevailing attitude among Sanders supporters in 2016 was rightly that the political system was rigged. Clinton was the chosen candidate. Email leaks eventually vindicated the Sanders supporters’ hypothesis that the Democratic National Committee had paved the path for Clinton’s nomination. Sanders supporters’ exasperation boiled over at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Sanders-backing delegates walked out of Clinton’s acceptance speech in protest.
That story, of course, had a happy ending. Clinton lost the general election, and Sanders supporters effectively forced the DNC to fix the superdelegate system and clean house. The 2020 primary field then became the largest in the nation’s history, with Sanders safely in second place for the overwhelming majority of the season.
Yet despite their successes, Sanders supporters are as bitter as ever. They couldn’t possibly be more vicious online. In large part, this is because there are more options. Anti-establishment voters can also back Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard. Intersectionally driven voters can pick a woman or a candidate of color. Leftists have Warren as an alternative.
Those remaining in the loudest Sanders fever swamps are the hardcore socialists — the people who believe that the state has the right to rob you of your livelihood at gunpoint.
What Clinton accurately pinpoints is not just what Sanders supporters do without his endorsement but how he enables it. Just as President Trump winked and nodded at the vilest of his alt-right supporters in 2016, Sanders has all but endorsed the Eat the Rich tactics of his online base by bringing them onto his campaign. He openly campaigns with Linda Sarsour — not just a rabid anti-Semite but someone who specifically bullies women online. He endorses flagrant sexist trolls like Cenk Uygur and pals around with credibly accused domestic abusers like Keith Ellison. Although he ought to be more vocal in demanding more civility from his supporters, you can’t blame Sanders for the actions of his individual supporters. But from his surrogates? That’s a different story.
Clinton might be right, but her grip on the Democratic establishment gave rise to the Bernie Bros in the first place. Maybe she should sit this one out and leave it to the women who could actually win the White House.
