The Absurd Identity Politics of Establishment Pundits Critiquing Bernie Sanders
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/07/absurd-identity-politics-establishment-pundits-critiquing-bernie-sanders

..........If Hillary Clinton was anything like Sanders, they probably would not support her. In fact, one wonders if they share Madeleine Albright’s view that “there’s a special place in hell for women,” who do not support Clinton.

Stern’s core argument is a prevalent one among those who have diffident attitudes toward Sanders. It is a slightly more sophisticated variation of the argument around “Bernie Bros.” It attempts to challenge “Sanderistas,” who claim they are not sexist and would vote for a female presidential candidate. But not Clinton.

“I have no doubt that some Sanders supporters legitimately favor his policies over Clinton’s, and that they might vote for a woman with Sanders’ ideology,” Stern argues. “But my strong suspicion is that, in any nominating race featuring a female candidate, there will always be a Bernie Sanders—a male alternative whose gender allows him to do everything his female opponent cannot.”

Stern is not the only one making this claim. In a syndicated column published by the Washington Post, titled “The sexist double standard behind why millennials love Bernie Sanders,” Catherine Rampell argues young Americans like the authenticity of Sanders. She suggests this authenticity is “off-limits to any female politician, not just one with Clinton’s baggage.”

“Female politicians—at least if they want to be taken seriously on a national stage—cannot be unkempt and unfiltered, hair mussed and voice raised,” Rampell asserts. “They have to be carefully coifed and scripted at all times, because they have to hew as closely as possible to the bounds of propriety available to both their sex and their occupation. They can’t be too quiet or too loud, too emotional or too cold, too meek or too aggressive, and so on.”