When one thinks of angry white people supporting Hillary Clinton, there's no better example than Bill Clinton's tirade against a leading black lawmaker. The legendary civility of many Clinton supporters is highlighted in a Mediate article titled Dem Rep. Clyburn Recounts 2AM Angry Phone Call from Bill Clinton:
...a new memoir from Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn includes a recounting, according to U.S. News, of the late night phone call he received from an angry Bill Clinton during the 2008 campaign season, when Clyburn was publicly criticizing the Clinton campaign and the former president personally for "bizarre" comments on African-Americans...
Back then, The Wall Street Journal reported that after hearing about Clyburn's remarks, Clinton called him over the phone, argued, and "called Mr. Clyburn an expletive."
Well, score one for the "politician actually delivers on a promise" column, because here's how Clyburn recounts that conversation, which took place at around 2 A.M.
"If you bastards want a fight, you damn well will get one," Clinton thundered.
As Clyburn tells it, the former president phoned to pin blame on the congressman, vent his frustration and seek an explanation on how his wife got whipped so badly [in South Carolina]...
"I had kept that promise. I asked him to tell me why he felt otherwise. He exploded, used the word 'bastard' again, and accused me of causing her defeat and injecting race into the contest," Clyburn writes.
While the "Bernie Bro" myth shields Clinton supporters from the reality of their own vitriol, history can't be erased by euphemism. Bill Clinton did indeed call a leading black lawmaking in the middle of the night, using profanity, simply to intimidate the man and express anger over his wife losing South Carolina.
Bill Clinton is apparently the original Bernie Bro.
Furthermore, white female Clinton supporters, petrified of losing power and influence within America's political system, acted in the same manner towards Ohio State Senator Nina Turner. In a piece titled Every Bernie Sanders Supporter Should Read This Today, Nina Turner shares her experience with angry Clinton supporters in an interview with Terrell Jermain Starr:
When you decided to support Sen. Sanders, did you catch any heat?
"Oh, my god yes. I've had white Hillary supporters saying to me that I betrayed the Clintons and saying I'm not going to have a future in politics.
I mean, they marked me for life, and I'm sitting back thinking: The Clintons never helped me to do a thing in my life, and all of a sudden they control my destiny? That was very condescending to me.
"I had a white woman here in Ohio who supported my Secretary of State run in 2014.
I'll never forget this. I was at a Planned Parenthood lecture a couple of months ago and she came up to me and said how disappointed she was in me. Very condescending. And I let her know that I really didn't care about her disappointment and I'm not on the plantation. That's exactly what I told her.
"Then she said, 'After all we've done for you.' Now, see. That was it for me. I interpreted that as, 'After all we've done for you, Black girl, you owe us.' They would never say that to anyone else, but the fact you feel you can say that to a Black woman? I thought she was supporting me because I was the best candidate to be Secretary of State...not because you own me or I owe you."
Ms. Turner's experience with the Clinton faithful correlates to the backlash Susan Sarandon endured, when sharing an article about Hillary's weapons deal controversy.
However, Nina Turner and James Clyburn experienced a more sinister element of the Clinton campaign. Imagine if a Republican called Congressman Clyburn in the middle of the night yelling profanity, or Republican supporters spoke to Ms. Turner in such a disrespectful manner. Would progressives condone such behavior?
The Clinton campaign and its supporters have developed an ingenious euphemism that shields them from being accused of the same folly they so gleefully perpetrate on a daily basis. Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms are filled with indignant Clinton voters, angered that Bernie Sanders has already shattered their aura of inevitability.
Thus, the Bernie Bro myth allows Bill, Hillary, and their machine to attack and belittle opponents, while at the same time taking refuge in a fabricated moral high ground.
George Orwell once referred to euphemisms as "verbal refuse," and perhaps no campaign in American history has stockpiled as much semantic garbage: witch hunt, "overclassification" of intelligence, the "convenience" of a private server, the Iraq War vote "mistake," "experience," "evolving" on gay marriage, another BS scandal, getting "things done" as a progressive, misspeaking about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire, and Benghazi!
Because of Clinton's penchant for euphemism, I explain in this YouTube segment why George Orwell would vote for Bernie Sanders, not Clinton.
Accusing people of sexism or misogyny, simply for pointing out Hillary Clinton completely fabricated a story about surviving Bosnian sniper fire, and Clinton's legions label you a Bernie Bro, while hiding behind the privilege they pretend to loathe.
Go ahead, try telling a Clinton supporter, especially a white person ready for Hillary, that Clinton's campaign accepted money from two major prison lobbyists.
You won't hear anything other than the words: "poll numbers."
However, poll numbers don't reflect the past and more importantly, can't erase history. Hillary Clinton's record on racial justice is "abysmal" according to Boston's Black Lives Matter president Daunasia Yancey. Harvard's Orlando Patterson wrote in 2008 that Clinton's 3 a. m. ad against Obama contained a "racist sub-message." In 2008, Clinton staffers even circulated a photo of Obama in African attire, hoping to play into the GOP conspiracy that he wasn't born in the U.S.
Like all these words and phrases, used to mask reality and paint a convenient narrative, the Bernie Bro myth allows Hillary Clinton, and especially her white supporters, to utilize non-white Democrats and people of color to their advantage. Essentially, they've placed 45 million black citizens, and 54 million Latino citizens, into one favorable poll number, without ever explaining why Hillary is better on racial issues than Bernie.
Simply referring to Bernie supporters as Bernie Bros paints a convenient narrative; one that ignores the $133,246 Clinton's campaign received from major private prison giants GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America. I explain Hillary Clinton's prison lobby ties on Tim Black TV and The Benjamin Dixon Show.
What most people forget is Clinton's more sinister euphemisms of the past, like referring to children as "super-predators." In fact, Michelle Alexander explains Clinton's more menacing euphemisms, especially those dealing with black people in the 1990s, in a Nation piece titled Why Hillary Clinton Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote:
In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. "They are not just gangs of kids anymore," she said. "They are often the kinds of kids that are called 'super-predators.' No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel."
Ms. Alexander is a highly respected civil rights lawyer, advocate and author of The New Jim Crow, and is voting for Bernie Sanders (viewing Sanders to be the lesser evil among both Democratic candidates), not Clinton.
So, what happens when you debate a Clinton supporter, or highlight the differences I've highlighted in this YouTube segment, or my latest appearance on The Ring of Fire?
You could be called naïve, since Clinton supporters have a keen sense of political realities, especially ones that don't include ongoing FBI investigations (which could easily derail the Clinton campaign very soon) or most of the country finding their candidate dishonest.
You could be called sexist.
Most likely, any reference to anything negative regarding Clinton's past or present will be ignored completely.
Ultimately, you'd experience either continual scorn, profanity, or other forms of vitriol. Then you'd be called a Bernie Bro. Like the treatment of James Clyburn, Nina Turner, Susan Sarandon, and countless others, you'd be left to wonder if your accuser was a progressive, or a Democrat so centrist he or she might as well be referred to as a moderate Republican.