Is Sanders' movement toxic?

 So...this is a touchy subject for me, as I've been a long time supporter of Sanders as documented in this blog since its inception, with me cutting ties with the movement far more recently as I go in my own direction. So I have a mixed and naunced perspective that most would not hold. I would say ultimately it is at this point, but I do think a topic I've come across online is worth talking about. 

To quote a guy in a thread I read asking about this and responding:

I like Bernie Sanders a lot in terms of his ideas and his proposals. I like the fact that he pushes for medicare for all. That he highlights wealth inequality and the negative impacts of poverty. I liked the fact that he was one of the few politicians on a national stage to acknowledge some of the disastrous impacts of certain American policies in the past such as the coups in Iran and Guatemala(which hardly any politician does). 

 I mean, absolutely, I love sanders on some level. I decided in 2014ish that America was screwed and that to solve our problems, we needed a "new New deal". My envisioning of it was based on UBI, M4A, and free college/student debt forgiveness. And Sanders was the dude in 2016 who channeled that energy best. He was never a perfect fit for my views, but he was the best we had at the time, and felt he did a good job advocating for change in the right direction.

However I have always had a different attitude to his movement. I like him but I never liked elements(and I say elements) of his movement. Specifically what were called the "Bernie bros". The reason being goes deeper than simply "oh they attacked the Democratic establishment". That actually doesn't bother me that much. The DNC establishment should be critiqued. What I disliked what that they seemed to normalise and amplify certain elements that were toxic in nature that were able to cover themselves under the label "left". 

  I mean, as someone who was a "bernie bro" for a while, i'm gonna say this. The dems crapped on us, and then told us to fall in line. We criticized the dem establishment because we felt like we had to. They weren't listening to us. They were slandering us and giving us the finger but then demanded our support. So as a result, a lot of us got pissed and became rather toxic about things. I admit it's getting out of hand NOW, but at the time, back in 2016, that behavior seemed more justified.

What I mean is that coming out of the "Bernie of Bust" type movement was a combination of tankies, political nihilists, reactionaries and bait and switch political contrarians who called themselves "leftists". And as far as I am concern they were unhelpful to any type of progressive cause and often times just perpetuated the circular firing squad.

 Bernie or bust was originally a reaction to the democrats screwing us and then demanding our support in 2016. They basically screwed us, told us we're not getting anything we wanted, and then demanded our support. Bernie or Bust was just us saying "No!". That's all there is to it. The dems tried to bully us and we told them to screw off. 

During the 2016 convention when you had the Mothers of the Movement(the mothers of the unarmed black youth who were killed that spark the Black Lives Matter Movement) endorse Clinton after the primaries were done, you had many of these types actually booing their speeches when they were talking about their experiences, which I found quite despicable. 

 Now, this is where things start getting dicey. This behavior DOES happen on the bernie left a lot. I see yang still get a lot of crap for endorsing biden. Never mind he's publicly explained his behavior again and again, both in "Forward" and more recently on his podcast, but the Bernie or Busters do get excessively toxic for people who throw their support behind establishment candidates after the major fights are concluded. Like that's my issue with them. They're too tribalistic, and too rigidly far left, that anyone who doesn't meet their insanely unreasonable purity tests isn't one of them. I mean for me to be saying this, considering I was a bernie or buster, well, there's some validity to it. 

The fact that a lot of them have actually turned on progressive Congress people like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and launch pretty vicious personal attacks on her from the left, which makes no sense to me.

 Yeah, stuff like this is why I no longer consider myself a bernie or buster. The fact is they do start attacking allies over minor transgressions and failing to go as extreme as they want. I can understand disappointment with AOC, but I also kind of understand the reasoning behind her actions. She's only one person and doesn't hold enough power to change the system by herself. So sometimes she has to bend and play the game. I understand the distaste with this, but I also understand why she does it. I also think it's ridiculous how these same people will scream about Yang despite him recognizing these corrupting influences and deciding to form his own third party to resist them. But apparently that's not good enough because he mildly supports Israel, and is a "capitalist" who likes UBI and not "socialism."

Which is where I get pissed at these guys. Seriously, screw the far left. The Bernie movement betwen 2016 and 2020 radicalized with all of this "socialism" nonsense where now I swear a lot of the hardcore bernie or busters are now tankies who wax nostalgically for the USSR despite never living through it. It's baffling to me. Like when Bernie said he was for socialism, it seemed clear it was a mild form of democratic socialism that's barely distinguishable from social democracy in practice outside of rhetoric. but now hardcore Bernie supporters are LITERAL COMMUNISTS. And they crap on anyone who isn't.

This is why I no longer associate with these people. Yang's human centered capitalism is a far better description of my ideology than what the Sanders movement has morphed into in the past few years.

The fact that a lot of them have gone on to push some really reactionary positions during the pandemic. For instance, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, the Greyzone and others who came out of the Bernie or Bust movement have been openly pushing anti vax conspiracy theories

 Yeah, this is another issue. Wayofthebern, the Jimmy Dore show, they were islands of sanity for me in 2017, and while they were a bit conspiratorial in 2016 over the dems screwing us, they werent entirely wrong, despite sometimes going too far with it with stuff like Seth Rich being murdered by the DNC. As they transitioned to the Trump era, they started accepting a lot of Trumpian BS about stuff like pizzagate and being against vaccines, and blah blah blah. Like, they just completely went off the deep end. And eventually, I realized I couldn't tolerate this stuff any more, and I couldn't follow them. Imagine being so anti democratic party you start sounding like a republican just to own the libs. All while simultaneously being leftists. it's ridiculous. 

Moreover I have just found that in discussions with these people they have political double standards and are not consistent. They believe that reserve the right to attack the mainstream democratic party(which deserves a lot of critique) but think themselves above criticism. They talk about Bill Clinton and Joe Biden's role in the Crime Bill and ignore Bernie Sander's role in voting for it. They say things like "I could never vote for Clinton or Biden because they voted for wars" and then proceed to vote for Bernie Sanders despite his own record of voting for interventions in places like Afghanistan or Somalia. Its one thing to critique the Democratic Party from the left, which I have no problem with. Before the Bernie movement a proper left perspective was not well represented in American politics. But the reactionary and tankie elements that crept into it I think are kind of a cancer that needs to be called out.

 Of course, and this is one issue I think Yang is getting it right, despite me not necessarily seeing it at first with his forward party stuff. it's tribalism. These guys are tribalistic. They are so into gatekeeping their side, that they alienate anyone who has the slightest deviation from their perspective, while sometimes having weird double standards with people they like. Bernie isnt even a saint among these people any more, but they still give him leeway on a lot of stuff. If a more moderate dem came out in favor of bernie's 2016 positions they would HATE them now. Heck, I knwo this because I'm in the Yang Gang. And Yang is pretty freaking far left economically. He actually argued in forward he saw himself as further left than sanders because he wanted to give people UBI and not even Bernie would go there, but now Yang is constantly lambasted and can't do anything right because he's not a full blooded "socialist". Never mind BERNIE isn't either really. Dude's just a socdem with socialist rhetoric. 

It's ridiculous. This is a huge reason I cut ties with Bernie's movement. While I dont like the more moderate dems either because at this point everyone is either a Biden apologist or a full blown tankie, the fact is Sanders movement has bifurcated into those two camps. Some, including bernie himself are being absorbed into Bidenworld, which is why they face so much criticism from the left. Some of it deserved, but they just demand insane levels of purity that are impossible to meet. The other camp moving toward the far left.

And me, I don't like EITHER of these guys. I cant' stand Biden. I WAS Bernie or Bust for a reason, but that reason was so that I could accomplish specific goals Biden clearly fails on. But the actual Bernie or bust people are so far gone they're literally these weird socialist reactionaries these days. It's bizarre. These guys can't be reasoned with. I tried. I'm literally to the point where I'm like, okay, screw Biden, I hate Biden, I hate the dems, but I also hate these guys too. I'm not some socialist reactionary. Sorry, I'm not. I just want to accomplish the goals I set out for at the dawn of the 2016 election cycle, UBI, M4A, free college/student debt forgiveness. And at this point I would probably keep climate change and electoral reform as high priorities too.

That's why I keep saying that my views haven't changed much. I mean, I've been reading old stuff I wrote in 2016, and I really haven't. But the world has changed around me, and it's not in a good place right now. The left is too left. The dem establishment remains centrist and evil. I'm not happy with anyone. Except maybe the yang gang, and even then if you asked me to nitpick I'd find nitpickings there. I've already laid my grievances with yang and his movement out here before. I'm not afraid to criticize my heroes. That's the thing. I'm not a tribalistic guy who will just mindlessly follow some movement. I will follow those who suit me best. And given my politics it seems harder and harder to find people who I agree with these days. As I said last year, it's like everyone on the left is either a dem syocphant, or they're a full blown socialist, with no nuance in between.