Chronically Dishonest

We keep having these distracting debates about whether Joe Biden is senile at the expense of examining his compulsive lying. I’m no clinician, but it's obviously compulsive because: a) He keeps doing it despite constantly getting caught and b) The lies are clearly not thought-out beforehand - and thus easily caught.

The scandal that sank his 1988 presidential campaign went far beyond plagiarism. He made all sorts of boorish Trumpian boasts. Academically, Joe Biden claimed that he got three degrees in undergrad and had graduated from law school in the top half of his class, winning accolades all along the way.

Whereas in reality: “Biden does not mention the moot court competition on his resume, and did not win the political science award at University of Delaware, where he received a single B.A. in political science and history.” Oh, and he actually graduated 76th in his law class of 85 students. Not the top.

Biden made these bogus boasts because he got into a tiff with a New Hampshire man in 1987. Biden said “I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do.” It seems he hasn’t changed greatly. This cycle, he challenged a voter to a push-up contest and, yes, another IQ test. “You wanna check my shape on it, let’s do push-ups together here, man. Let’s run. Let’s do whatever you want to do. Let’s take an IQ test.” But back in 1987, this was how Joe Biden launched into a bombastic polishing of his academic record. 

Of course, failing a class for plagiarism was part of his actual academic record. He was generously allowed to retake the class. That ignominious moment should have scared him straight, but he kept on plagiarizing and lying after he got out of law school. Like I said, it’s a compulsion. And it’s life-long.

That brag about his class ranking was spontaneous and defensive. But Biden’s lies are not always concieved in the heat of passion - not that being easy to rile into lying is okay in a presidential aspirant. Biden frequently repeats lies quite casually when he is not under pressure and that is quite likely compulsive as well - especially if you keep telling it after repeatedly being asked not to by your staff. Joe Biden has a rather Reaganesque love of to retelling the same tall tales.

For example, in his '88 campaign, Joe Biden had also claimed he marched with the Civil Rights Movement - much to the chagrin of his long-suffering aides: As the New York Times noted last year, “More than once, advisers had gently reminded Mr. Biden of the problem with this formulation: He had not actually marched during the civil rights movement. And more than once, Mr. Biden assured them he understood - and kept telling the story anyway." Again, that’s a compulsion.

Atrocity Propaganda

In his famous essay “Notes on Nationalism," George Orwell wrote, “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." Call me crazy, but I think that the same dynamics apply to partisans of every description. 

And I think that atrocities include mean tweets.

Recent data analysis has confirmed what most sober observers have already guessed a long time ago - that Bernie Sanders supporters do not act any worse online than any other candidate’s.

I’m dropping a line to let you catch your breath, in case you need it.

That’s right: They are no worse - which also means their opponents are no better. Most campaign supporters do not cross lines in their passion and the few poop-tossers who do can be found on all sides. If you doubt that, you can consult the Orwell quote above or the data findings below.

Jeff Winchell, a computational social scientist and graduate student at Harvard University, looked at negativity on Twitter expecting to find more on the Sanders side. Instead, he found “Bernie followers act pretty much the same on Twitter as any other follower.” The only difference is “Bernie has a lot more Twitter followers" suggesting this may help perpetuate the Bernie Bro myth.

Why did he expect to see more negativity from Sanders supporters?

I believed that Bernie's followers are more likely to like him because they are more likely to experience the very negative life circumstances that Bernie Sanders wants to fix. People in a negative situation are more likely to interact negatively with people, particularly those anonymous online people that they have no in-person relationship with. So I had anticipated that Bernie's followers on average would have a much higher chance to be negative. This does not appear to be the case or at least not as much as the claims I read on Twitter, political media reports or on TV.

I can honestly say that I have seen this specific negativity online. It is raw and it is real. When some callous centrist pompously snarks that Sanders supporters are asking for “ponies,” many may well say, “Fuck you, my [loved one] died from rationing [his/her] meds” or “Fuck you, my [loved one] lost a limb in Iraq” or “Fuck you, my [loved one] got killed by a cop who got away with it.” Etc.

These people do not want others to suffer as they and their loved ones have suffered. They lack that reactionary attitudinal defect that dictates others should struggle needlessly too - that it is somehow “unfair” to improve things. They don’t want to watch society make the same stupid mistakes and they are willing to make a noise and inconvenience themselves and others to prevent it from reoccurring. 

That is a noble sentiment that should never be maligned or marginalized. It’s basic civic decency and the cynical self-anointed “realists” who seek to stifle it are poisonous to participatory democracy. These “realists” are, at best, oblivious to how change takes place. But that ignorance eventually festers into defensive hostility. Democracy is messy and common, so genteel people are always profoundly uncomfortable with it. The privileged don't like to listen - which is how we got here.

The deploring of rude Sanders supporters is essentially tone-policing writ at large. These people have righteous grievances, but how they express them becomes the dominant press narrative which coincidentally conveniently eclipses those grievances. Of course, that's how tone-policing works - it's a silencing tactic. It’s how the guilty party and/or its wealthy sympathizers change the subject and blame the victim. It’s a ridiculously shitty reflex that is quite common among civility fetishists.

But the so-called “abuse” by the victims almost never goes beyond that much deserved “Fuck you.” It doesn’t escalate to harassment, stalking, or doxxing - at least no more so than it does for supporters of any other candidate. And yes, every candidates’ - including even Elizabeth Warren’s.

Incidentally, comedian Kate Willett wrote a moving account of losing her boyfriend because he could not afford the care he needed. It doesn’t contain any Fuck you-s, although she is certainly entitled to use them. Her stand up is outstanding and definitely has clear feminist sensibilities. You can hear more here.

I don’t think most people really appreciate just how insanely hateful anti-Sanders attacks have been or the extent that they have been normalized. This is important, because when attacks against a particular person or group become normalized, they cease to be noticed.

Recently, two separate MSNBC hosts have used two separate Nazi analogies against Bernie Sanders (who incidentally is Jewish) within only two weeks of each other. Not long afterwards, a white supremacist snuck into a Sanders rally and dropped a Nazi flag in the stands. Yet for some reason, no network covered it. I suppose it would hamper to their "just another old white guy" narrative.

In any case, just imagine seeing any of that and thinking that “Bernie Bros” are the real problem. One host, Chris Matthews, finally got fired after a pattern of odd historical hyperboles, but the other, Chuck Todd, kept his job. It was not because his analysis was in any way more accurate or measured, but because he lacked Matthews’ avuncular flair. You can slander if you’re bland. That’s apparently the rule.

And these are professional broadcast journalists for fuck’s sake. Imagine how amateur assholes act online - probably not terribly professionally. I’m going to go out on a limb and say somewhat worse. Why, you might even call them rude - even the blue check marks.

Twitter is littered with little unhinged Chris Matthews clones who are sexist toward any women who support Sanders. And many are even far, far worse than Matthews. Their rape rhetoric is pretty threatening. It’s not hard to imagine it and you don’t have to imagine it.

And of course, if you are a Person of Color who supports Sanders (and over half of Sanders’ base is PoC), you get plenty of racist attacks from supposedly “moderate” Democrats.

NEWS FLASH: Moderate politics do not make moderate temperament. Indeed, they do not even make moderate politics because how pollsters categorize moderates actually masks extremism because moderation is conflated with not following party orthodoxy.  But I digress.

The point here is it should not surprise anyone that the “Permit Patty” types who phone the police on blacks for simply being nearby also address grown men of color as “boy” online. And if you are a Woman of Color, you get the sexism and the racism - often combined. Imagine tweeting this: “Picture Nina Turner acting the part of the surly housemaid on The Jefferson’s except it’s The Sanders lake house."

Don’t flinch, centrists: These are your people. Acknowledge your offspring because it is even less dignified to deny them. Denial is both obvious and ridiculous. Acknowledge your bastards at long last. 

And I've only shown a few examples of hateful centrists, but they certainly ain't rarities. You can find an exhaustive catalog in this Twitter thread. Also in this thread. Oh yeah, you have no idea.

So why aren’t there also lots of articles about them? It’s almost as if the corporate media does not actually care about online civility and is just trying to stop Bernie Sanders any way they can. Huh.

I’m hardly arguing that obnoxious Bernie Bros don’t exist - quite the opposite. I’m saying that every candidate attracts grotesque supporters and that Sanders’ worst ones don’t even remotely represent his movement and they are no worse than other candidates’.

When some people say “Well, I’ve never been attacked by X candidate’s supporters” I always ask if they have ever critiqued that particular candidate’s policies. For example, have you spoken about Kamala Harris’ pretending to be a “progressive prosecutor" with one of the K-Hive? As the name suggests, they will swarm you - and not politely. That’s Twitter. Expressing a political opinion in a public online forum draws vitriol. Who knew? But the point here is it’s easy to think a particular faction is well-behaved if you have never angered them. And for the very same reason, it is even easier to be oblivious to your own faction’s insane nastiness. After all, you haven’t attacked yourselves.

It is also worth noting that not all mean tweets are created equal. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted." Nobody enjoys being told they are wrong, but that is hardly abuse. Yet Sanders surrogate David Sorita is routinely called “toxic" for tweeting links to The Congressional Record and C-SPAN even as he is the target of actual toxic content. Nina Turner sparked an odd outcry for rather accurately calling Michael Bloomberg an “oligarch.” Personally, I think “plutocrat" is more precise, but oligarch certainly works.

Perhaps this tweet sums up the absurdity best. "I called @briebriejoy Bernie's Goebbels and all the berniebros are like omg how can you compare a Jewish candidate's spox to a Nazi. Then they turn around and accuse another Jewish candidate of being an oligarch. You can't make this shit up."

No, I suppose you cannot. That last daft tweet is almost adorable. The other stuff, less so.