Hillary supporters falsely accuse Bernie Sanders of unethical actions

Bernie supporters tend to rationalize and create excuses for all of the Senator’s questionable stances and actions. It seems as if Sanders is infallible and, in his supporters eyes, incapable of making a mistake. Every human is flawed, so what mistakes has he made you cannot condone or rationalize?

(This post originally appeared as a response to a question in Quora)Your statement that Bernie supporters rationalize and create excuses for all of the Senator’s questionable stances is false. Bernie supporters know that Hillary and her minions are planting false stories in the media. Therefore, we have no need for excuses or rationalizations.

Take the statement made by Debbie Wasserman Schultz that Bernie said he did not condone violence—and here she uttered a broadly emphasized “but…” The truth is that Bernie did not have any buts in the statement he released to the public. Schultz is trying to make the public believe that Bernie said something he did not say. The same is true when she reports that “chairs were thrown” or the delegates in Nevada were “violent”. There is plenty of video coverage of the scene in Nevada. No chairs were thrown. No acts of violence were committed. So there is nothing for Bernie supporters to excuse or rationalize.

The advantage that we Bernie supporters have is that Bernie is always honest and above board. The same cannot be said for Hillary or Schultz, who reminds us of Bagdad Bob, the spokesman for Saddam Hussein who

denied there were any American tanks in Baghdad, when in fact they were only several hundred meters away from the press conference where he was speaking [1]

It is obvious from videos taken at the convention that

1. The convention Chair railroaded through very undemocratic and extraordinary rules of procedure. For example, the new rules made any ruling by the chair impossible to change. This kind of absolute power is familiar in dictatorships, but unknown—until now—in democracies.
2. The Chair of the convention asked for a voice vote on the report of the credentials committee. A clear majority of the delegates present opposed their adoption, but the Chair ruled that the rules were approved despite the obvious wishes of the delegates.
3. The Chair of the credentials committee was fired because she objected to the way that the Hillary members had removed 64 Bernie delegates from the official delegate rolls, without adequate investigation, or warning, or explanation.
4. The convention Chair at first refused to permit a minority report from the credentials committee to be read to the delegates until another member, serving as temporary chair, yielded his time for the reading.
5. All of these actions angered the delegates to the convention, who voiced their loud disapproval of these anti-democratic tactics. But the ruling of the chair could not be appealed under the new rules. This proves that the rules were changed because Hillary and her supporters recognized they would never get the extra two delegates to the Convention in Philadelphia without pulling these procedural shenanigans.

So no, the Bernie supporters have nothing to apologize for. There was no violence or any other illegal acts.

On the other hand, Hillary and her anti-democratic crew have a great deal to apologize for, but no such apology has been offered. Instead, they have accused Bernie and his supporters of the same kinds of acts that they publicly committed. Can Hillary be elected when she and her supporters use these tactics against fellow democrats who happen to support the candidacy of Bernie Sanders?

Footnotes

[1] Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf

Written 1m ago

Upvoters0

Why we didn't vote for anyone

Bernie Sanders at least has a coherent philosophy. But when he claims that the voters were fooled by Republican slander, he isn't giving voters enough credit for their intelligence. Sure, the country has lost faith in its government, but if they really want health care, they know they haven't a prayer with the republicans. I think people failed to vote because they couldn't see any difference between the Democrat and the Republican in their local elections. Obama has talked a good show, but major constituencies have doubts about his sincerity.

Obama has courted the Latino vote, but he is known in the Latino community as the guy who deported more Latinos than any other president. Deportation of a friend or loved one is a personal affront and a deep injustice. So Latinos look at him as someone who failed to keep his promises.

African-Americans look at our prisons and see their young men in chains. In the streets, they see their young men shot down with impunity by violent, heavily-armed cops or any other white man with a gun. They have no great vote for Democrats while cops were still assaulting African-Americans in Ferguson.

The progressives look at Obama as the guy who gave us half a national health plan and didn't fight hard enough for a one-payer system, which is the only way the system will work. Obama also ran on an anti-war platform, but actually escalated the war in Afghanistan. He killed Osama bin Laden, but anti-war voters did not buy into the Bush doctrine that we should fight terrorism around the world. Progressives understand war itself is terrorism, and we do not like to see our president pounding the drums for war. Progressives didn't like to see tax cuts as the major stimulus program. Bush gave us that. Finally, progressives saw Wall Street and the neocons from the Bush administration walking away unpunished from the disasters they caused.

So Republicans should not take comfort that the election was a referendum against Obama. Many of the people who dislike Obama do so, not because he is too liberal, but because he is not liberal enough.

The man in the middle will take fire from both sides.