Fending off the Newest Smear of Bernie Sanders (and his supporters)
There is yet another absurd smear attack against Bernie Sanders making the rounds on social media. This one involves an image of an alleged Bernie Sanders supporter carrying a disgusting sexist sign at a anti-Clinton protest back in 2016. The sign read “women are NOT fit to be president. President = Man’s job.” In the image, the man carrying the sign is wearing a Bernie shirt.
Over the last two days, I have seen this image in several liberal Facebook groups, along with messages saying things like “see, I told you so” or “this is why I can never support Bernie Sanders.” The sign is obviously terrible. The most common argument made in response to the image has been something along the lines of “don’t blame Bernie Sanders for what one person or some tiny fraction of his supporters did.” This line of argument is technically correct, a candidate cannot and should not be blamed for the actions of a tiny group of his/her supporters. But responding in this way feeds into the false narrative that Bernie’s supporters are “Bernie Bros,” likely to have sexist ideas. This is a narrative that was cultivated by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 and dutifully parroted by the media on many occasions.
In this particular case, it is even worse because the guy holding the sign was absolutely not a Sanders supporter. The image has been photoshopped. Instead of wearing a blue Bernie T-shirt, in the original image the man is wearing a greyish-blue T-shirt that says “College” on it. Luckily, RawStory reported on the incident at the time. As the story reported, “The man was spotted outside Clinton’s appearance in Buena Park, California holding a sign saying, “Women are NOT fit to be President” and “President=man’s job.” The story certainly does not say that he was a Sanders supporter. Rather, it states (and shows video) that a group of Bernie Sanders supporters, who were there to protest against Clinton for non-sexist related issues, confronted the man, grabbed the sign, and ripped it up. This is a far cry from claim being made with the photoshopped image.
It is hard to tell if the people spreading this image are aware that it is false. Considering the anti-Bernie efforts of many linked to the party establishment, such as David Brock’s Correct the Record and Neera Tanden’s Center for American Progress, it may be part of a concerted effort to undermine Sanders’ support as he takes on front-runner status in the 2020 race. In fact, in the last two days alone, there have been several stories mentioning the very public discussion taking place among the party establishment expressing fear of Bernie’s campaign and the possibility to taking action to defeat him. As such, it is extremely important that untrue smears like this was countered and dispelled before they sway the opinions of well meaning voters that are being led astray.
