Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., participate in the first of two Democratic presidential primary debates hosted by CNN Tuesday, July 30, 2019, in the Fox Theatre in Detroit. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Last night’s dumpster fire of a Democrat base exposed one of the factors that most of the left have taken for granted in their quest to oust Donald Trump. Namely, that Bernie supporters are a significant portion of the base and they will hold a grudge come the 2020 general election.
If Elizabeth Warren’s plan was to split her party, congrats on a rousing success last night. As I posted initially, CNN absolutely went to town on Sanders in order to shill for Warren, framing questions as if he were lying and Warren was telling the truth, refusing to question Warren on the cost of any of her plans, and allowing her to parrot talking points unchallenged. That alone got Sanders’ supporters incensed.
Then another video started making the rounds after the debate which showed Warren refusing the shake Sanders’ hand and seemingly chewing him out.
Here, judge for yourself.
Warren refuses to shake Bernieโs hand ๐ ๐ ๐ ๐
pic.twitter.com/Fspo3QlEL4— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 15, 2020
And here’s a closer look at Tom Steyer’s reaction as he comes over to try to break up whatever was going on.
Here is Tom Steyer's interaction with Sanders and Warren to Curb Your Enthusiasm #DemocraticDebate pic.twitter.com/6m1tZC8aF3
— Michael Schwab (@michaelschwab13) January 15, 2020
Someone’s gotta be able to read lips and transcribe this exchange. It certainly wasn’t friendly and it appears that Warren was upset despite having the entire team of moderators play in her favor throughout the night. The jerking back of the hand is obvious. At another point, you see Sanders point his finger in her face.
This led to a full scale revolt among Sanders’ supporters online. They managed to get #CNNisTrash trending as the #1 hashtag in the United States.
The anger at Warren is palpable at this point. Just a quick perusal of my timeline shows numerous Bernie bros (and sisters) ranting about how much of a snake Warren is.
If the Massachusetts senator thought she was going to knock out Sanders and suck up his supporters, that plan just went out the window. It also possibly hurt the Democrats overall, even if it’s Joe Biden, against Trump. If you’ll recall in 2016, a not insignificant number of Sanders supporters voted for Trump and helped push him across the finish line in several close swing states. These would be some of the blue collar union workers that traditionally went Democrat.
That could easily happen again and Warren’s gambit has given Sanders’ supporters the excuse they need to shun a party and media complex (CNN in this case) that they perceive as treating the socialist senator unfairly.
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