BERNIE SANDERS’ WOMAN PROBLEM

Summary: There is an awful lot to love about Bernie Sanders. He’s a fearless warrior for America’s middle class, and it’s hard not to admire his fire, his passion, and his conviction. But Bernie has an emerging woman problem. In a time when social media have increasingly redefined the way in which American political messaging is done, the messaging that’s coming out of the Sanders campaign from supporters of Bernie Sanders on such social media as Facebook seems dated and sexist. Blaming Hillary for everything they object to about Bill’s record as President tends to reinforce the emergent feminist critique of the Sanders campaign is out of touch and disturbingly willing to traffic in sexist, anti-feminist, or even misogynist messaging. If Bernie Sanders develops a woman problem, a lot of women voters will develop a Bernie problem, and those pissed off, kissed off women voters may very well rally in large numbers to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I adore Bernie Sanders.

I admire the way he bears fearless, tribunician witness against the immiseration of the middle class by the greediest 1% among us.

I admire Bernie’s ideas, I admire his fire, and I admire his conviction.

What I don’t admire are Bernie’s supporters, who I think are going to do him some fairly serious damage.

In an emergent politics that depends heavily on social media, the downside of such social media is that it becomes possible to dig deep into the views of a particular candidate’s supporters. It becomes easy for opponents to find in the indiscreet utterances of a given candidate’s supporters a great deal of ammunition to use against the candidate. Any political consultant can tell you that Facebook is a very good place to undertake opposition research.

I’m not sure Bernie Sanders actually understands the danger to his campaign that some of his supporters represent.

Now let’s shame the devil and tell the truth, though the Democratic 2016 primary campaign has been tightening, Hillary Rodham Clinton still remains the prohibitive front runner, polling well ahead of the independent Vermont senator. This means that Bernie has something of an uphill battle before him. Moreover, truth be told, Bernie Sanders’ candidacy for the presidency of the United States is still a long shot, no matter how enthusiastic many of his supporters may be.

Unfortunately, it’s a virtual truism in partisan politics, particularly Democratic partisan politics, that supporters of longshot candidates tend to let their frustration with their own candidate’s longshot status get the better of them. On social media, the tone of the great majority of comments from Sanders supporters has been strongly negative and strongly cynical toward Sec. Clinton.

Indeed, reading some of the pro-Sanders comments on social media leads one to the conclusion that if Hillary Rodham Clinton were to walk across the waters of Washington’s Tidal Basin, Bernie Sanders’ supporters would flay her for being unable to swim. Moreover, Sec. Clinton’s often expressed support for marriage equality tends to be dismissed by the Sanders people as mere political pandering, unworthy of any consideration whatsoever.

This leaves the Sanders campaign open to charges of living down to Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic as one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

But as much as the Sanders campaign can probably get past charges of cynicism, it may have a harder time getting past the incipient feminist critique of his White House effort that it is trafficking in sexism, anti-feminism, and even misogyny.

It’s not hard to find evidentiary support for that emergent feminist critique of Bernie’s campaign. Many Sanders supporters have embraced a fairly common comment trope, belaboring Mrs. Clinton for the political record of her husband, President Clinton. To evaluate a woman, even a married woman, on the record of a man, even her husband, denies that woman’s independent existence and personhood. It denies that woman’s agency and postulates that such a woman is nothing more than a shadow or alter ego of some man.

You don’t have to be steeped in the works of Gloria Steinem, Germaine Greer, or Betty Friedan to know that such a view is, indeed, sexist, anti-feminist, and even misogynist. Simply put, a lot of Bernie’s campaign supporters (even the women among them) are pissing off a lot of uncommitted Democratic women by coming across as sexist, and the voter you piss off is a voter you can kiss off. If you’re a politician and your followers insult me, don’t be looking for my vote.

To the extent that Bernie Sanders’s campaign manages to piss off women voters and becomes tarred with the brush of misogyny, Sen. Sanders can kiss goodbye to his hopes of moving into the residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW in January, 2017. Simply put, Bernie needs to reach out to women in far larger numbers than he has been able to do thus far. No Democrat can hope to win the White House who does not make huge, even majority inroads into a base made up of women voters.

The numbers history of Bill Clinton’s two successful presidential campaigns and that of Barack Obama’s two victorious runs demonstrate clearly how important the gender gap is for Democrats in a presidential election. If the word gets out that Bernie Sanders has a woman problem, or that Bernie is not keeping some of his more vocal, more apparently sexist supporters in line, then Bernie Sanders will indeed have a problem with women voters.

And if Bernie has a woman problem in his campaign, women may very well wind up having a Bernie Sanders problem and making the choice to rally to Hillary Rodham Clinton.