If you need the background: https://www.rt.com/usa/331671-clinton-steinem-albright-backlash/
Gloria Steniem and Madeleine Albright have insulted young women who don’t want to vote for their favorite candidate.
I’ll just say it. I think the Clinton surrogates have been acting like bullies for a long time. I don’t think all Clinton supporters are bullies. My wife supports Clinton without criticizing Sanders supporters like myself. She has also convinced our three year old daughter that the priority is a woman president. And that’s fine.
Some people who are older and more sophisticated than my daughter also think its important that the president should be a woman. If you think being a woman is the most important reason to vote for a candidate, or a powerful reason to vote for a candidate, there’s really no factual matter to argue about. Some things can’t really be resolved in a debate. You can’t really debate normatives, you can’t really debate the definitions of word. In the end it’s your vote, your choice, and your prerogative. But it would be nice if we could maintain respect in spite of our different choices.
However, I do believe the whole “Bernie Bro” narrative is a cheap tactic, as Glenn Greenwald said. https://theintercept.com/2016/01/31/the-bernie-bros-narrative-a-cheap-false-campaign-tactic-masquerading-as-journalism-and-social-activism/
The more obvious target is young men who support Sanders. Supposedly, they aren’t worried about Clinton’s aggressive foreign policy, they don’t like Sanders platform which is more aggressive on Civil Rights, pot decriminalization, minimum wage, and college. They are just sexist “bros” who have always been out to get Clinton.
The less obvious target, is people who are not “bros”. Gay men like Greenwald, the majority of young Democratic women who support Sanders, and an increasing number of people of color who support Sanders. I believe the main target of this narrative is the not the “Bernie Bros”, but the “Sanders Sisters”; the large number of young women who like Sanders. The Clinton surrogates seek to hide their voice, because it doesn’t support their candidate. Likewise, by cheapening the motives of the “Bernie Bros” they seek to make people forget about the many non-USian people who are victims of the kind of foreign policy Clinton has always supported. (Disclaimer: like Greenwald, I don’t doubt that there have been some sexists among the Sanders supporters. There’s sexists in every group. But I don’t think sexism against Clinton is a very important reason for Sanders success.) And now the Clinton surrogates have attacked Sanders Sisters more explicitly. First they ignored them, then they laughed at them, now they fight them. And that brings us to my first meme. Which is the nicest one.
I find Steinem’s comments particularly troubling. This is partly because I believe we already knew Madeline Albright is a horrible person. But more importantly, Steinem is saying that young women vote for silly, frivolous, reasons. Clinton surrogates love to say the young women who support Sanders forget what older feminists accomplished. But the Clinton surrogates are ironically forgetting the accomplishments of the First Wave Feminists: The Women’s Suffrage Movement. Would Susan B. Anthony say that young women are silly and not good decision makers? No. Their opponents said that. In 1910, there was small anti-Suffrage book called “Ten Little Suffergets. http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/exhibits/suffrage/suffergets.html
Steinem’s rhetoric echo’s one of the pages of that book. Willie Jones was apparently a Bernie Bro, who a young woman would throw away her agency to impress. I don’t seek to destroy the legacy of Gloria Steinem, but I feel this comment needs to be completely de-legitimized. It’s a bad idea and it needs to be destroyed.
All and all, I think it’s remarkable that Steinem and Albright failed so badly on both respect for women, and basic diplomacy. I think they suffer from a remarkable lack of self-awareness, and possess a remarkable level of my-shit-don’t-stink-ness.
I presume there are some missteps of the Sanders campaign that I’m not aware of, but I think they’ve been much more circumspect, particularly when talking to the American people.
The last one is more about Madeline Albright. Since she really isn’t worthy of respect, I’ll go ahead and let loose. #FeelTheBernInHell