The day I inadvertantly jammed $27 into a very angry hornet’s nest
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/04/19/the-day-i-inadvertantly-jammed-27-89-into-a-very-angry-hornets-nest/
On Monday, I wrote a piece exploring what I considered an interesting question: Why was it that Bernie Sanders's average campaign contribution had stayed at $27 for months? It was a question I'd seen on Twitter on the not-infrequent occasions in which Sanders brought it up, and it's something that I figured I could answer. So I answered it. The reasons? First, averages involving millions of numbers change slowly. Second, the campaign encourages a $27 donation explicitly (with a button on its fundraising page) and implicitly (by making it a point of pride). And, third, it actually does waver from that point, apparently by decent margins, but the effect is still the same.
Shortly after the piece went live under a headline that highlighted the fact that the $27 isn't constant, I began receiving a steady barrage of negative feedback on social media from Sanders supporters. That by itself isn't uncommon and isn't actually representative of the real world. (I wrote about this in February.) But the tenor and volume of that feedback was unusual — particularly given that the piece was innocuous, as I saw it. It wasn't a fact-check; it was a math lesson. But by the end of the day, I'd received thousands of negative tweets, negative comments on Facebook, and any number of emails — excluding the scores of spam emails I'm getting because someone signed me up for them in bulk. Someone called my editor to complain. Someone else posted my home address on Twitter.
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And, fourth, there is an obvious willingness by Sanders supporters to assume that institutions of power are out to get them — and to lash out in response. This goes back to the original point. I'm not owed the benefit of the doubt that my goal was not to disparage Sanders's contributions but to explain them. But neither I nor anyone else writing critically about Sanders deserves the sort of response that has been received. No, Twitter isn't life. But irrational fury that leads to abusive behavior isn't the sort of thing that should be ignored.
Campaigns built on indignation and anger stochastically produce this kind of response. It remains to be seen whether this will get better or worse, and whether Senator Sanders will show true leadership on that count.
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