An Open Letter to Bernie Supporters

Stop Being Idiots

By Elias J. Atienza

Last night, as I was browsing through the drudges of the internet, I stumbled upon a cancer. A NowThis Election Facebook comment section discussing Hillary Clinton’s win in Mississippi.

Clinton won the state by nearly 70% and as with most of her wins, it was due to large support from African Americans. Clinton has swept most of the South, while splitting the North with Bernie, where it is mostly white.

Here’s what I found in the comment section:

“The older Black vote in the Deep South should be disgusted with themselves for backing the weakest one on civil rights and a woman who campaigned for GOLDWATER while Sanders marched with MLK! #SHAME“

“Mississippi is a conservative state!”

“She gets all the mentally retarded southern hick votes no shock there.”

“No surprise, she won the poorest, most ignorant, racist state in the nation.”

“Sanders marched with Dr King!! What more do black people want???”

Those are my favorites.

She won a racist state with overwhelming black support? They dismiss this because Mississippi is a conservative state; never mind the fact that this was a Democratic Party primary. Democrats do exist in the South and a lot of them happen to be black. In South Carolina they made up 55% of the Democratic electorate. There, Clinton won 87% of the black vote, nine percent better than President Obama performed  with black voters in 2008.

Sanders supporters are in disarray. They ask themselves why black voters are coming out for the woman who has done nothing for them over the guy who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. They ask themselves why black voters don’t want the democratic socialist.

Sander supporters don’t do Bernie any good. They complain and complain and then end up asking “what more do black people want from Bernie? He marched with Martin Luther King Jr. Isn’t that enough?” 

And the answer is No. Just because a white man marched with Martin Luther King Jr. doesn’t mean he’s entitled to black votes. He has to earn those votes (not that he knows what earning something is about, having never worked a day in his life).

Don’t take it from me though…

A viral post on Reddit by a black voter attacked Bernie Sanders supporters. In it they write:

“His supporters, again, have done him no favors. His supporters are rabid. Especially true online. When the BLM thing happened, holy shit, the racism and venom was unbelievable. These people were supposed to be progressive too… But all you read was how stupid we were, nigger this and coon that. Even now, those same people are making passive aggressive (or flat out aggressive) comments towards black people for not supporting bernie enough or those who say they support Hillary. Black people are on the Internet, folks. We see exactly what you see when we read the comments section on news sites, on Reddit, on tumblr, on Twitter, on Instagram or on Facebook etc.”

A majority of Sanders’ supporters are idiots. They’re usually white, a lot of them are in college, and yet they feel justified to talk down to black voters. They don’t want Americans with real problem to get in the way of their “free” college and “free” healthcare.

Of course, Bernie himself doesn’t do himself any favors. Recently, he said, “When you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor,” it was an insult to both minorities and whites. He implied that all minorities are poor and live in ghettos; not good when you’re supposed to be banking on their support. And he insulted white people, especially those who are poor and live in the ghettos.

His supporters say the quote is taken out of context and claim that he was actually quoting a Black Lives Matter activist. What they forgot to mention was that he was clearly not quoting her when he was talking about white people. He quite clearly said that white people don’t know what it’s like to be poor or live in a ghetto; a direct slap in the face of the 18.3 million whites who do live in poverty.

They refuse to face reality in that Bernie Sanders is a stupid ignorant man. They refuse to face reality that Bernie will continue to be ignorant and will continue to mislead. He’s an idiot who will only lead them down the road to serfdom.

Does that mean Hillary is any better? Hell no. She’s a terrible human being who should be in prison, not running for president.

But when facing reality, Bernie supporters need to stop being defensive and start facing the real truth; their candidate will be endorsing Hillary in three months.

I’ll echo Eric July’s words.

“White liberals annoy the hell out of me.”