Sanders Supporters Dox Women Who Participated In His CNN Town Hall
Last Saturday, Senator Bernie Sanders sent an email to his supporters asking them not to attack or bully other Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential nomination, or their supporters, as he begins his own campaign. His email read, in part:
“As we engage with our opponents in the Democratic primary, we will forcefully present our views and defend ourselves against misrepresentations…But, let us do our very best to engage respectfully with our Democratic opponents ― talking about the issues we are fighting for, not about personalities or past grievances. I want to be clear that I condemn bullying and harassment of any kind and in any space.”
Over the past few years, Sanders’s supporters— often called “BernieBros,” or “Bernie Stans” after the Eminem song “Stan” — have cried foul when things haven’t gone their way, and even gone so far as to send death threats to supporters of Hillary Clinton or other Democrats. While his statement was positively received by moderate Democrats, three days later his supporters were back to their old ways.
At a CNN town hall meeting Monday night, Sanders was asked many tough questions, including ones about his never-released tax returns, his stance on the ongoing crisis in Venezuela, and whether or not he supports reparations for African-Americans. One of the toughest, asked by a female college student, concerned the recently-revealed sexual harassment scandals that occurred during his last presidential campaign in 2016 — as well as his response to them, when he said on Anderson Cooper 360 that while said events transpired, he was “a little bit busy running around the country trying to be elected president.”
“How can a voter like me [a woman of color] feel confident in your ability to represent the party?” she asked. Sanders replied that his response to Cooper was “taken out of context” (even though she had quoted it to him word for word), and told moderator Wolf Blitzer that he took the issue “very seriously.”
The next day, Sanders fan “Progressive Blacksmith” (handle ProgBlacksmith1) tweeted information about this questioner to his followers:
This activity is called “Doxxing,” which Merriam-Webster defines, in part, as “publicly identify[ing] or publish[ing] private information…especially as a form of punishment or revenge.”
When Sanders senior advisor Josh Orton told him that his actions were inappropriate, he responded meekly, “There seem to be conflicting opinions on this, so everyone is entitled to it.”
“Well, I’m expressing mine. It’s not helpful,” Orton replied.
“Okay, cool…I don’t agree with you. Not sure what else you want me to say,” ProgBlacksmith1 said.
After blocking Olson, ProgBlacksmith1 tweeted to his followers:
But that didn’t stop him from harassing other women, such as writer Leah McElrath, who criticized his actions and found herself attacked by other Sanders supporters for doing so.
ProgBlacksmith1 was not the only Sanders supporter to go after town hall participants. Former Salon journalist Walker Bragman propagated the belief that the town hall was “rigged” against him by arranging for former Clinton supporters to ask the questions. TYT anchor and Sanders advocate Cenk Uygur also accused CNN of failing to properly vet the participants, naming them with co-anchor Ana Kasparian.
When Sex Object author Jessica Valenti accused them of “putting a target on her back for harassment,” she, like McElrath, provoked the ire of Sanders supporters, who called her a “[expletive deleted] centrist hack,” and “[expletive deleted] dolt,” among others.
Over and over, Sanders supporters justified these actions by claiming that just revealing a person’s name or where they work does not count as actual “doxxing,” because the information that they used was publicly available. This interpretation does not hold water with doxxing victims, particularly women, the most vulnerable online targets of this practice. Kendally Brown, a disabled healthcare activist, wrote yesterday:
“Our number one priority is defeating Donald Trump,” Sanders (who has not yet commented on this situation) said in his email last Saturday. “To do so, we will ultimately have to unite with those who today are our opponents for the Democratic nomination.”
Only time will tell if he, and his supporters, live up to those words.
