Loses His Halo

Bernie Loses His Halo

Even progressives are criticizing him now after he’s shown a harder edge. 

By Bill Scher

s the left turning on its darling, Bernie Sanders? On Friday, Netroots titan Markos Moulitsas, namesake of the liberal Daily Kos, dropped a rhetorical bomb on the Bern, blaming the candidate for doing too little to denounce death threats received by the Nevada Democratic Party after Sanders’ state convention delegates complained they had received unfair treatment. “The problem isn't Bernie Sanders' supporters,” Moulitsas wrote. “It's Bernie Sanders himself … [He] refuses to forcefully and unambiguously reject that violence, instead rationalizing and explaining it away with a mix of grievances and outright conspiracy theory.”

Actually, Sanders hasn’t lost much support among his most avid supporters—who do not include Moulitsas, a sometime critic. What we are seeing, however, is that it’s no longer taboo in liberal circles to attack Sanders as he drags out the nomination process at a time when many are itching to turn their fire on Donald Trump. And if his reputation in the party is being damaged outside his base, that will make it harder for him to extract concessions from Clinton regarding the platform and party nomination rules at the convention.

Through much of the campaign, Sanders wore a progressive halo, making it tricky for Clinton to play classic hardball politics (not that she didn’t try). Even if Democratic voters didn’t believe he was the practical choice, his platform still spoke to the ideological aspirations of many in the party. His supporters heard, “I like Bernie, but…”  so much that they turned it into a website providing information designed to assuage unsure voters.

Much of the warm, fuzzy sentiment was based on a perception of Sanders as a non-politician, a man so wedded to his ideals that he would not besmirch them by engaging in petty politics. Democrats of all stripes lauded Sanders in October when he went out of his way to keep the debate focus on policy and take an enticing line of attack off the table, thundering, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails.”

But in the months that followed, the Sanders campaign adopted an increasingly harder edge, gradually depriving him of angelic protections. Now, with only six states remaining on the primary calendar, the delegate math harder and harder to ignore, and the Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump short of insurmountable, partisan impulses on the left are kicking in, and patience for squabbles is wearing thin.

This week another prominent figure in the online progressive community, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall, also blamed Sanders directly for the increased animosity, saying: “The 'burn it down' attitude, the upping the ante … seems to be coming from Sanders himself. Right from the top.” Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum said more in sorrow than in anger this week, “It's sort of painful to see a good person like Bernie turned into such a sullen and resentful man.”

Still, neither Marshall nor Drum, like Moulitsas, had been an active Sanders supporter.

Two months ago, Moulitsas declared the primaries effectively over and banned from his site “malicious attacks on our presumptive presidential nominee or our presidential efforts.” Last month Drum said Sanders was “basically running a con … we were never going to get a revolution, and Bernie knew it all along.” Marshall has been neutral, but has shown flashes of Sanders skepticism, such as when he characterized his economic critique as a “somewhat one-dimensional diagnosis.”

Perhaps the toughest shot Sanders has taken from inside his tent is from liberal commentator Sally Kohn. She stopped short of switching allegiances, but in a column for Time, she admonished Sanders for his Nevada response: “This is unacceptable behavior. Sanders has condemned it, but not forcefully enough for my taste.”

And, in case anyone thought the race was almost over, there’s still plenty of defiant commentary coming back from the Sanders camp. Radio talker Thom Hartmann, who for years gave Sanders a national platform with his weekly “Brunch with Bernie” segments, disavowed any violence but urged the Democratic Party leadership to heed the anger expressed in Nevada and “earn our votes.”

Sanders likely grasps the potential danger of alienating too many progressives. Despite the charges that the toxicity comes “from the top” of the Sanders campaign, Bloomberg News reports that Sanders has personally reached out to fellow senators and given “behind-the-scenes assurances” that he “understands the need for party unity.” If so, Sanders may be deliberately walking a tightrope: keeping his supporters animated to maximize his delegate count and his leverage, while preparing for the eventual pivot towards compromise in Philadelphia.

He may believe this is a safe line to walk, remembering the intense yet ephemeral acrimony of the 2008 campaign. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent compared the polls from then and now and concluded that “the percentage of Clinton’s supporters in 2008 who seemed prepared to bolt was marginally larger than the percentage of Sanders supporters who now say the same.” However, there was no convention floor fight in 2008 to stoke the embers of disunity.

The ideological goals of Sanders and his voters both overlap and compete with the goal of Democratic harmony, complicating his strategic decision-making. But he could try to transcend the binary choice between confrontation and reconciliation.

If there’s one thing Sanders can’t stand, it’s a media distracted by food fights and ignoring matters of substance. Last August he challenged a reporter asking him about his differences with Clinton, saying, “[The] corporate media talks about all kinds of issues except the most important issues. OK? And time after time I’m being asked to criticize Hillary Clinton. That’s the sport that you guys like. The reason this campaign is doing well? Because we’re talking about the issues that impact the American people.”

Right now, the media is getting a lot of the sport it likes, and Sanders is getting a lot less of what he likes. He might consider delivering a speech on how giving reporters fodder for stories about discord only serves to take the spotlight away from income inequality and corporate influence over democracy – which would be a way to urge better behavior from his supporters without sounding like he’s scolding them.

Because if Bernie wants to own the moral high ground at the convention, he’ll need to return the focus of his campaign to the issues in its final days.