Here's Why Some People Can't Stand Bernie Sanders

Here's Bernie Sanders on July 26, 2018, talking about how the Democrats need a 50-state strategy:

"Sanders told me by phone from Washington, a few days after his Kansas stop, that a 50-state strategy is common sense.

'It is beyond comprehension, the degree to which the Democratic party nationally has essentially abdicated half of the states in this country to rightwing Republicans, including some of the poorest states in America, those in the south,' Sanders said. 'The reason I go to Kansas and many so-called red states is that I will do everything that I can to bring new people into the political process in states which are today conservative. I do not know how you turn those states around unless you go there and get people excited.'”

Yet, in March 2016, during the Democratic Primary, Bernie's campaign manager Jeff Weaver admitted to doing that very abdication:

"Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, said on the call that their campaign chose not to compete in eight of the 32 states that have held primaries or caucuses so far. Weaver identified Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia and Louisiana as the states where they didn’t mount a challenge to Clinton, who swept all of the Southern contests; he said the Sanders campaign did not broadcast television advertisements in those eight states or have 'a big campaign presence.'

'Almost all of Secretary Clinton’s delegate lead come from states where she faced little or no competition,' said Tad Devine, Sanders’ senior campaign strategist. 'Her grasp now on the nomination is almost entirely on the basis of victories in states where Bernie Sanders did not compete.'”

Bernie Sanders is hypocrite who will take any and every opportunity to trash Democrats and act as though he alone is different because he cares about all the people that Democrats have ignored, forgotten, and abdicated, even if - in fact - he and his well-paid, internationally-connected consultants are as establishment, truth-spinning, and political as they come.

Bernie's narrative also, of course, erases the hard work that actual Democrats in red states do every day against almost insurmountable conservative and right-wing forces. Of course, this day-to-day, lower-profile, and unglamorous work is likely disproportionately done by women and people of color so it's entirely possible that Bernie doesn't know it's occurring or doesn't view it as political labor.

(Cross-posted at Shakesville)