It seemed inevitable. It became so after the DNC email debacle. Clinton’s supporters, having won the primary fight, have started getting nasty with those Sanders supporters who feel their candidate got rooked. The latter are irate, and they’re showing it. They’re disrupting speeches, they’re marching, they’re protesting, and they’re getting under the Dems’ skin. Sarah Silverman scolded them. Eric Zorn at the Chicago Tribune called them Bernie Babies. The rank-and-file are exemplified by an anonymous commenter’s exhortation, which embodies what a lot of Clintonistas are saying to the Bernbots.

Two months ago, I wrote about Trump’s bullies, the people who demand that those folks who supported other GOP candidates or hovered in the GOP sphere, but who asserted they weren’t going to vote for Trump, support “their party’s” nominee, the Orange one. They went beyond demanding into the realm of personal insult and other forms of attack. In short, they tried, and continue to try, to bully anyone who isn’t on the Trump express into going against their own judgment and their own principles.

There’s no reason whatsoever to think that the Left wouldn’t act the same way, and sure as [redacted], Clinton’s supporters are demanding that their more principled brethren abandon principle and support the woman their candidate spent a year excoriating.

Their approach is similar to that of the Trump bullies. It’s a combination of “the other candidate is so much worse,” “your principles are going to put the greater evil in office,” “you’re a [redacted],” and “grow up!” mixed in with some specific fear-mongering. The Trumpkins warn of what Clinton will do to the Supreme Court, how she’ll ignore ISIS, open the borders to millions of immigrants, flood the nation with muslim terrorists, tax the hell out of anyone who works, destroy the economy, kill jobs and destroy religion. The Clintonistas warn of what will do to minorities, immigrants, the poor, the environment, foreign relations AND that he’s too insane to be trusted with nuclear launch codes.

Then, if all these aren’t hysterical enough, there are the true histrionics, as our anonymous commenter demonstrated. Were we to take this post at face value, Trump will single-handedly subjugate/enslave all women, all minorities, all immigrants, and all gays. He will somehow hide all the doctors, destroy marriage and turn the nation into a great big hunting range (where, it seems, anyone but you and your friends gets to hunt while you are prey).

This isn’t quite an example of Poe’s law, which observes that, on the Internet, it can be tough to discern histrionics from sarcasm. Our anonymous commenter is quite sincere, I do believe, in this hyperbole. The fact that it’s demonstrably nonsense won’t make a difference. The goal is to bully the Berners through fear. The goal is to get them to vote for Clinton, even if it takes lies and nonsense.

Lets be perfectly clear. Neither Clinton nor Trump will destroy the republic. I don’t care which one of the two you fear or which one you somehow think will actually do good – your worst nightmares are not going to come true. The President is not a king, and there are two other branches of government and a truly massive bureaucratic machine that will stand in the way of their excesses.

As for our anonymous commenter? He or she is not only assigning power to Trump that he simply won’t have, but he or she is making claims that have no connection to reality. I won’t deconstruct it, other than to puzzle at the penultimate warning. Clinton’s the one who’s got an anti-gun agenda, and who stands against our ability to protect ourselves and each other. But, our poster hasn’t let facts invade his or her brain cavity regarding the rest of the rant, so, in the immortal words of Donald “Boon” Schoenstein, “forget it, he’s rolling.”

Clinton’s bullies are just like Trump’s bullies. Some genuinely believe in their candidate, others merely see CLUMP as a lesser evil than CLUMP. Both are perfectly content using bullying tactics rather than positive persuasion to cajole others into voting against their own best judgment. Both have turned “principles” into an epithet, sad to say, and the country is far worse off for it.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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