Lol how is calling someone a corrupt liar not a personal attack?!
I'm not sure what Sanders has said or done that equates to calling Clinton a corrupt liar.
... you're kidding, right?
He's spent his whole campaign painting the picture of "us versus them," "good versus bad," "honest versus corrupt." True, the evil boogeyman is Wall Street and the super-wealthy, but if you spend all your days building up that boogeyman and then allege even subtly that Clinton is a part of that, you don't have to actually connect the dots in order for your supporters too... It's still a shady attack meant to undermine her character. Except because he cleverly doesn't say it outright he gets to think of himself as taking the moral high road? Uh, that's not how it works.
And I think it is absolutely hilarious for a Sanders supporter to suddenly care about party unity. At this juncture, there is value in deflating the Bernie balloon. It'll show that Hillary doesn't sit and take it, is prepared to win the nomination with force, and will bring that same vigor to the general election campaign. You talk about party unity, but perhaps there are enough soft Sanders supporters who would be more easily drawn to the Clinton camp by her arguments against Sanders than if the primary went on for months and months with her not hitting back and these supporters getting further indoctrinated into the Cult of the Bern. Bring the guy down to earth and maybe a few of his less entrenched supporters will see reason too. Clearly he will make no effort to unite the party when loses, so Hillary has to force the unity on her own. Good for her.
None of which amounts to a personal attack. It's a serious criticism of the political system that (some) Democrats make quite frequently. I believe that it is a fair criticism and I will vote accordingly; others will disagree on substance, and that's another discussion. But if you can't recognize that, it's a failure of critical thinking.
Deliberately stoking the fire to heavily imply that your opponent is one of the
corrupt and
morally bankrupt bad guys, without being able to provide any evidence that the person's political work has actually been hijacked by big money,
doesn't count as a personal attack? The "substance" is actually pretty clear.
I mean, if you truly can't see the strategy Sanders is employing to debase Clinton's candidacy and malign her character, I'm afraid it's actually a case of
you wilfully missing the forest for the trees. And, you know, yeah: It's a strategy that comes with the territory. But I'm not obliged to think it's honourable, especially now that it's clear he can't win the nomination. Any lasting harm he does to Clinton is actually an act of self-sabotage if he really believes in his cause (in fact, you could argue that it's a sabotage of the American people), because like it or not, she's the one who will be in the position of carrying his cause forward once we get to the summer.
And frankly, since he's shown no sign of backing off, it's about time she took the gloves off too.
