Democratic Primaries

First, criticizing and attacking are two very different things. DU's TOS prohibits the kind of attacks that I've been talking about. As to the candidates themselves, DU members are not allowed to post "disrespectful nicknames, insults, or highly inflammatory attacks against any Democratic public figures. Do not post anything that could be construed as bashing, trashing, undermining, or depressing turnout for any Democratic general election candidate, and do not compare any Democratic general election candidate unfavorably to their general election opponent(s)." https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=termsofservice We are also not permitted to post divisive attacks against groups or personal attacks against other members. Such posts will be alerted on and most likely removed. On DU we are policing the behavior of our members. However, we can post critical comments; this is, after all, a political message board. If you consider what you see here to be vitriol you're not getting out much.

What has been happening in the real world and on-line outside of DU (mainly Twitter, but to some extent on Facebook and elsewhere) is something altogether different, and it seems to be almost entirely the work of Sanders supporters. There are many documented instances of Sanders supporters disrupting events IRL, booing and catcalling whenever the name of other candidates (including Warren, but also Biden, Buttigieg, etc.), former candidates (Hillary), and other prominent Democrats (Pelosi, even Obama) are mentioned because apparently these politicians are part of the dreaded "establishment" that they oppose even more than they oppose Trump. What Sanders supporters did at the 2016 DNC convention is very-well documented. On-line, Sanders supporters have been doxxing and harassing posters, who express anything negative about Sanders. If the poster is female the words "bitch" and "c*nt" will often be used. Ask anyone who frequents Twitter and posts something critical about Sanders. This is not made-up. And supporters of other candidates are not doing these things, or if they are, it's not happening often enough for the mainstream media to take notice and publish news articles and editorials about it, as they have re: Sanders' people.

Obviously these are a small minority of the totality of Sanders' support but they are loud and obnoxious and occasionally frightening. Anyone should be able to go online and post a critical remark without fear of personal attacks, doxxing or stalking. There is no excuse for this kind of behavior no matter how strongly someone might feel about the injustices they think Bernie is able to cure. There is no excuse for booing Elizabeth Warren or Joe Biden or Pete Buttigieg or Amy Klobuchar or Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, all of whom have devoted their lives to public service and deserve respect for that even if you don't agree with them. I don't think it's unreasonable for someone attending an event who witnesses this kind of behavior to step in and say, "Hey, cut it out!" (at least if they're not afraid of further harassment by the offending person, which could be a problem). Zeal and enthusiasm are not excuses for bullying behavior. I don't get why Sanders' more civilized supporters - the vast majority of them - can't seem to see that the so-called "bros" reflect very poorly on their candidate and on them. Wouldn't that be at least a little incentive to speak up about it and say "Those people do not represent me or the Sanders campaign" instead of trying to justify it by arguing that they are just enthusiastic about Bernie's wonderfulness, or by claiming it doesn't happen?

Bernie and his supporters are not being attacked on DU because it's not allowed. Fair criticism is allowed, and all of the candidates are getting plenty of it in equal measure. Pointing out the reality of some Sanders supporters' bad behavior is not an attack but an observation coupled with the question of why anybody could possibly think it's OK, because it's not.

Aaaand just now, after a couple of guys got into a fight at a Sanders rally: