Falling Into The BernieBro Spiral
I should start this essay by saying that I havenāt been on Twitter all that long, at least not as a poster. But around May, everything changed for me. I decided to bite the bullet and got myself an account.
I started by following some of the people I already knew from the few times I spent on Twitter right after the election: Neera Tanden, Joy Reid, Oliver Willis, Louise Menschā¦ā¦ the list goes on. It didnāt take long before I was up to speed. Simply put, I was ready to #resist.
Itās no secret that for all the strong and courageous people on Twitter (many of them of color), thereās an underside. To quote Thomas Jefferson, in my favorite musical (guess which one, LOL!!):
Evāry action has its equal, opposite reactions
Thanks to Hamilton, our cabānetās fractured into factions
Try not to crack under the stress, weāre breaking down like fractions
We smack each other in the press, and we donāt print retractions
When I first started tweeting, I had heard about this notorious faction. Theyāre the followers of the one and only Saint Bernard. We all know him well ā heās the same one who double-teamed with Comey to make sure Hillary didnāt get elected. And yet heās praised, time and time againā¦ā¦ by people who have nothing better to do than harass women and people of color online.
I knew these people existed, and I had seen their anger. But I didnāt know just how much anger they had until I created my first real Twitter THREAD. For those not āin the know,ā a THREAD is where you make a bunch of tweets in a row. I had seen a lot of Bernie Bros calling people ācorncobs,ā and I knew what it meant. So hereās what I said.
You can click on that tweet to read the rest of the THREAD, but basically I pointed out that ācorncobā is both a racist and sexist term. Pretty simple stuff! But nothing could have prepared me for what came next.
Others accused me of being fake, which is pretty crazy considering that theyāre the ones who bought into the Russian-backed FAKE NEWS that pushed up Bernie at every given opportunity. I of course replied to these people how anybody would. (I blocked them.) I donāt have the time for this kind of nonsense!
And yes, Iāve made more THREADS since then. Iām going to keep doing so, even with the angry replies I get from people calling me a fake and a corncob. And the scary thing is that I know that the harassment I receive is nothing compared to what #resistance leaders like Candice Aiston and Sally Albright receive!!
In conclusion, yes, this was my first time dealing with the harassment of the BernieBros, and I know it wonāt be the last.
