2016 Postmortem

then saddle the rest of us or Bernie himself with that behavior, any more than it would be for me to point out the shitty things Hillary supporters have said about Bernie supporters or Sanders. You often dredge those things up, and clearly they left a bad taste in your mouth, but I would challenge you to try to focus on Sanders platform, his own words and record, and the best of us and our intentions, and I will do the same of Hillary supporters.

I won't condone any actions that attempted to silence questions, but I will also say there were plenty of posts not posing questions at all but propagating a false meme that yes, was first propagated by Clinton's own messaging department, and was picked up and run with here on these boards.

The actual questions are great, and I'm pretty sure that Sanders advocacy, while perhaps not perfect or ideal, far exceeds Clinton's on actual policies that help people of color. That was drowned out. Tanahashi Coates for example, put out an article specifically taking Sanders to task for not supporting or advocating for reparations, in a primary cycle where neither candidate did. Those things have real effects because he is a trusted and valuable voice on issues of race and social justice. He later followed up but he had to know a piece so implicitly stilted would have coat-tails.

As to Bernie refusing to temper protests, I'm not sure it was the right decision but I understand it. Plenty of us felt, and for good reason, that the DNC had actively worked against Bernie's chances, from the ridiculous debate scheduling, to the united establishment front that started saying things like "Bernie isn't a real democrat," (looking at you Boxer), to Clinton's propaganda instrument in Brock who was putting out disingenuous hit-pieces about Bernie, such as efforts to pretend he wasn't part of the civil rights movement, the hammering of Bernie Bros, etc. etc. So I can understand why he might have thought the DNC deserved some pressure.

That doesn't mean there weren't elements that Bernie did attract that don't best represent us, and its no surprise that they would be the loudest and most disruptive, not to mention the least sensitive or compassionate. That's a side-effect of appealing beyond our natural limits as a party, which is not a bad thing to do. Your fear is that that sort of thing was the main thrust of the Sanders movement, and that's just not the case, if you look at his consistent messaging and the things he's fought for his whole life in congress.