McClatchyDC on May 6 published the results of a poll attempting to discern voter impressions of the online aggressiveness of supporters of five presidential candidates.
Which candidate has the most aggressive online support?
Politico published the same results, also on May 6. The poll was conducted online over the period March 2 to March 9, and included 1,017 participants over the age of 18.
Donald Trump was the clear winner. Fifty-seven percent of respondents found Trump online supporters “very aggressive” No surprise here. With Trump it’s a feature, not a bug. Strategy sessions may be underway as I write planning to get the figure over sixty.
Second place is the shocker. Thirty percent of those polled found Clinton supporters to be very aggressive. Thirty percent—very aggressive. Maybe Clinton supporters, forced to dodge the slings and arrows of outrageous Breniebros decided to hit back first?
Third place was captured by Ted Cruz. Twenty-one percent found his online supporters to be very aggressive. You’d think supporters of Lucifer in the Flesh could generate a little more heat.
Straggling into a weak fourth place was Bernie Sanders. Only sixteen percent of respondents found Sanders’ online supporters very aggressive, just over half the number who classified Clinton online supporters as very aggressive.
At the bottom of the heap we find John Kasich. Eight percent of respondents found Kasich online supporters very aggressive. I’m not convinced Kasich belongs with the others. How many respondents read a comment or a tweet by a Kasich supporter? It just doesn’t seem fair.
I’m very confused. To appropriate Will Rogers, I only know what I read in Daily Koss. The claim that Sanders’ online supporters are very aggressive has been spread, well very aggressively, by Clinton supporters at DK. And I don’t have to take the word of Clinton’s DK supporters. A significant number of well known Clinton supporters including nobel laureate economist and pundit Paul Krugman, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Connie Schultz and MSNBC political analyst Joan Walsh among others have offered widely circulated criticisms of the aggressive behavior of Bernie supporters online and elsewhere. And I mustn’t leave out the conversion diaries, the weekly proclamations that the rude, misogynistic and racist behavior of Sanders supporters has caused yet another person to switch from Bernie to Hillary. The short time many converts have spent at DK coupled with the paucity of pro Bernie comments prior to their conversions might cause a cynic to be skeptical. Being unable to read minds, I won’t go there.
Still, when pillars of the liberal establishment and regular contributors to DK, the most reality-based progressive blog on the web, coalesce around the position that Sanders supporters are obnoxiously aggressive and a poll of a much broader group of internet users indicates that people are nearly twice as likely to find online Clinton supporters highly aggressive, we have a discrepancy of some magnitude.
I’m confident Clinton supporters will clear up my confusion in no time. To simplify this process I offer the null hypothesis, ready to be rejected, that commentary on the aggressive nature of Sanders supporters is less an accurate description, or even a matter of flawed perceptions than a well organized campaign tactic. It seems that every time Hillary Clinton has to engage on the issues we find that she has in fact held Bernie’s position much longer than he has. Far better to shift the conversation from the candidates’ positions to the behavior of their supporters.
Thanks in advance to Clinton supporters who take time to clear up my confusion.