Elizabeth Warren says the online behavior of some Bernie Sanders supporters is ‘a real problem’
"I’m talking about some really ugly stuff that went on.”
After exiting the Democratic presidential primary race, Sen. Elizabeth Warren was pressed on the online attacks she received from some supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders — and called out the behavior in general as “a real problem.”
“It’s not just about me,” the Massachusetts senator told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow in an interview Thursday night. “I think that’s a real problem with this online bullying and sort of organized nastiness, and I’m not just talking about, ‘Oh, you said mean things.’ I’m talking about some really ugly stuff that went on.”
Warren referred to how a powerful Nevada hospitality workers union said it was “viciously attacked” by Sanders supporters after it distributed a flier opposing the Vermont senator’s Medicare-for-All proposal. According to the union, the online harassment included Sanders supporters publishing the home phone numbers and addresses of two of its top leaders.
“These are tough women, tough women who’ve run labor organizing campaigns and really earned their jobs and their union — I mean the hard way — and yet said for the first time because of this onslaught of online threats that they felt really under attack,” Warren said.
Warren also pointed to how leaders of the Working Families Party said they faced racist and sexist attacks from Sanders supporters after the progressive political group endorsed her campaign.
“I want to say this for all of the candidates, back when there were lots of us, we are responsible for the people who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening, ugly, dangerous things to other candidates,” she said.
In response, Maddow asserted that it was “particularly a problem with Sanders supporters.”
“It is,” Warren said. “It just is.”
Warren said she had spoken to Sanders about the issue. Asked what the conversation was like, she said, “It was short.”
“Yeah, we’ve talked about it,” she said. “But I think it’s a real problem.”
Warren said she would let Sanders “speak for himself” about the problem, which has dogged his campaign since his 2016 presidential run. As the 2020 race entered this winter, the venom increasingly turned toward Warren, when she began sharpening contrasts with her progressive ally-turned-rival. Sanders supporters have also accused Warren of being a “snake,” after she accused him of once saying he didn’t think a woman could win in an election against President Donald Trump.
Sanders has repeatedly condemned the harassment, which he says comes from a tiny fraction of his most fervent followers, going so far as to “disown” those involved in the attacks against the Nevada union. Sanders also told reporters Wednesday that he was “disgusted” by the “vitriol” toward Warren.
The Cambridge Democrat said Thursday that the attacks were emblematic of a growing problem not solely unique to Sanders supporters.
“It’s something that we need to reckon with in our political discourse in particular,” Warren said, adding that the efforts of activists promoting differing agendas should be rooted in a “fundamental human decency and respect for each other.”
“If we follow that same kind of politics of division that Donald Trump follows, that notion of — he draws strength from tearing people apart, from demonizing people … That’s not who I want to be as a Democrat,” she added. “That’s not what I want to be as an American.””
Warren questioned if there was a way to “think more creatively” to address the online harassment and brought up the People’s Pledge she signed with then-Sen. Scott Brown to self-impose a ban on outside spending in their 2012 race.
“It’s not a perfect analogy,” Warren said. “But the point is you don’t have a creative solution until you sit down and try a creative solution, and if the first one doesn’t work, move it aside and let’s try the second, and if that one doesn’t work, move it aside and let’s try a third. But throwing up our hands and saying no we can’t do this, that cannot be the right answer.”
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