Clinton and Sanders Voters: Rules of Engagement

In January of 2008, at Eschacon, a gathering of liberals in Philadelphia sponsored by Atrios's Eschaton blog, the Rude Pundit was scheduled to perform. A blog friend came up to him in the hallway of the conference hotel the day before. She had tried to convince him that Obama couldn't possibly win, that Clinton was the way to go, and she had a warning. "Just wanna let you know," she said. "If you start going after Hillary tomorrow night, a couple of big butch lesbians said they are going to rush the stage and stop you." The Rude Pundit went back to his room later that night and furiously rewrote his script, revising his "42 Ways Not to Have Sex with Ann Coulter" to be an all-out, barnburning attack on Clinton. "Fuck them," he thought. "Come at me."

The next day, all throughout the events, the Rude Pundit realized that, whether or not we agreed on the Democratic candidate, we were in this together. He hadn't said or written anything to be shitty to Clinton supporters so far. Why start now? Why should we turn on each other? How useless that seemed, especially in the wake of the destruction wrought by George W. Bush. He stowed the Clinton stuff and degraded the shit out of Ann Coulter, and a splendid time was had by all.

The Rude Pundit thinks about that every single time someone gets viciously upset that he doesn't have the oh-so-expected high hard-on for Bernie Sanders. Yesterday, after writing that Hillary Clinton won the debate, he was inundated with people trying to prove him wrong. "Sanders won every online poll and focus group," they told him. Online polls have no scientific basis beyond who is moved to click on them. Relying on them to prove your point is like saying your Mom says you're a good singer.