I still wonder what Bernie Bros are. Are they basically progressive frat boys?
I think the
Wikipedia article is a good starting point for understanding the term's usage (whether or not one agrees with it).
Robinson Meyer, a writer for The Atlantic, coined the term Bernie bro in an October 17, 2015 article[2] to describe young, white, progressive men who, in his view, believe that "The only reason you, and every other Facebook user, haven’t supported Bernie yet is your own willful ignorance". In the article, Meyer characterized "Bernie Bro" as "male... white; well-educated; middle-class (or, delicately, 'upper middle-class'); and aware of NPR podcasts and jangly bearded bands." Furthermore, according to Meyer, "[t]he Berniebro asserts that this country needs highly principled, pie-in-the-sky progressive policies, regardless of how likely they are to become legislation.
To answer OP's question, I think a big part of the answer comes down to the increased prominence of social media in the late 2010s as compared to the early 2000s. To be clear, there certainly were liberal blogs like DailyKos and groups like MoveOn, and in fact the Iraq War mobilized the online left from 2002-2008 in a way that's somewhat similar to the way Trump mobilized the left from 2016-present. But social media engagement has grown dramatically in the 21st century for various reasons; most importantly, only about
half of American adults even used the internet in 2000. I would argue that this social media has had a major impact in amplifying the voices of people on the left wing of the Democratic Party and the right wing of the Republican Party.
