FINAL UPDATE: PLEASE SEE SEPARATE DIARY, THANKS.
UPDATE: It’s been pointed out by several people that a) you can find extremist nutbags among any major candidate’s supporters and b) that the PUMA/HillaryIs44 crowd were just as nasty/unhinged back in 2008 (and had virtually no impact on the actual voter turnout in the end).
This is all true, and I called them out on it at the time as well...but that doesn’t make it any more appropriate/acceptable today.
AGAIN: This sort of behavior/attitude was dead wrong in 2008 and it’s equally dead wrong today.
UPDATE x2: Having thought this through further, I owe (most) Bernie supporters an apology.
I’m not going to apologize for posting the diary itself, but the angle I took with it was misguided.
Are there a higher percentage of unhinged Bernie supporters than there usually are of any major candidate (including Hillary back in 2008, or “Deaniacs” such as myself in 2004, for instance)? Perhaps, perhaps not.
I did note that “the vast majority” of Bernie supporters are completely reasonable”, but I still suggested that up to 1/5th of them aren’t, based on no particular data points, and that was wrong of me. As noted, a certain percentage of Hillary supporters were also unhinged in 2008, and a small portion of them likely are this time around as well.
So, I apologize. That part of the diary was out of line.
The LARGER issue here is that a certain percentage of Americans can’t seem to grasp the concept that this is real life. This isn’t a “reality show”. This isn’t “Game of Thrones”. This isn’t a sitcom. This is real life, with real people’s lives on the line.
Assholes like the guy quoted immediately below don’t understand what “Nazi-type change” actually means. It means thousands or millions of people being rounded up, imprisoned, starved, beaten, raped and murdered.
I’m leaving the original diary up because I think there’s some important points/discussion being made along with my screw-up.
What the hell else am I supposed to say about this?
Not everyone at Mr. Sanders’s rallies is dreading a Trump victory, however.
Victor Vizcarra, 48, of Los Angeles, said he would much prefer Mr. Trump to Mrs. Clinton. Though he said he disagreed with some of Mr. Trump’s policies, Mr. Vizcarra said he had watched “The Apprentice” and expected that a Trump presidency would be more exciting than a “boring” Clinton administration.
“A dark side of me wants to see what happens if Trump is in,” said Mr. Vizcarra, who works in information technology. “There is going to be some kind of change, and even if it’s like a Nazi-type change. People are so drama-filled. They want to see stuff like that happen. It’s like reality TV. You don’t want to just see everybody be happy with each other. You want to see someone fighting somebody.”
Now of course, Mr. Vizcarra is hardly representative of most Bernie supporters. The vast majority are completely reasonable, and I’m sure that a good 80%+ will eventually come around to voting for Hillary when push comes to shove in November.
HOWEVER, the larger focus of the NY Times story can be found in the headline and the lede, and while none of the other Bernie backers quoted are as horrible as Mr. Vizcarra, the general sentiment is just as vile:
Die-Hard Bernie Sanders Backers See F.B.I. as Answer to Their Prayers
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Senator Bernie Sanders may be trailing Hillary Clinton byhundreds of delegates, and Mrs. Clinton may be treating the Democratic nomination as hers, but Julie Crowell, a stay-at-home mother and a die-hard Sanders supporter, is holding out for an 11th-hour miracle: divine deliverance at the hands of the F.B.I.
Like many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters, Ms. Crowell, 37, said she hoped that Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state would eventually yield an indictment, and she described it as the kind of transgression that would disqualify another politician seeking high office.
Let me repeat: Numerous supporters of Bernie Sanders are actively hoping for the virtually-certain Democratic nominee for President of the United States, who also happens to be a former first lady, former U.S. Senator and former U.S. Secretary of State, to be indicted by the F.B.I, purely so that their own preferred candidate can end up as the nominee instead.
I’m seeing this attitude among some Bernie supporters all over Twitter and Facebook...and while some of them are no doubt Trump/GOP plants, I personally know of at least one long-time, very active Democrat who’s spouting this type of bile:
...It's not the Bernie crowd. It's the DNC. It's DWS. It's Hillary herself. Do you really want a President Trump by nominating Hillary? Hillary is in serious jeopardy after the State Department IG report.
...Believe what you want to believe...She broke the law. Do you really want a candidate that could be under indictment going up against a carnival barker?
...I think her e-mail scandal will do her in, even if she isn't indicted. It goes to her honesty and trustworthiness. Even the MSM is after her now on that. She has no credible answers.
...and so on.
And yes, I remember all too well Hillary’s own “we all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California” line. It was one of the lowest points in her 2008 campaign and I called her on it at the time. The fact that it’s possible that Something Awful® could happen to your opponent doesn’t make it right to note it openly—after all, something awful could happen to Bernie as well. Or to Trump. Or to any candidate running for any office at any level.
None of which justifies this sort of attitude from the Bernie supporters quoted in the NY Times article, and as for Mr. Vizcarra, all I can say is this: According to Wikipedia:
Vizcarra is a Basque surname which originated in the town of Guernica, Spain. This surname is mostly found in the Basque Country, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and the Philippines.
I’m sure that Donald Trump’s “Nazi-type” regime will duly take note of Mr. Vizcarra’s ancestry.