“Twitter isn’t real life” or “Tweets from Sanders’ campaign staff cost Sanders the primaries”?

[darklordoftech]

Don’t these two claims contradict each other? If Twitter isn’t real life, how would people in real life have any idea what Sirota or Gray are tweeting?

[CookieDamage]

They do contradict each other. I really don't believe Gray or Sirota had any meaningful impact, rather Sanders lost because he never got more than like 35% of the vote in many states which proved to not be enough once it was a 2 person race.

[Yank2133]

The tweets themselves didn't really hurt Bernie. It is annoying, but who gives a ****. However, Bernie's advisors being criminally online did hurt him. For example, Brie clearly didn't seem to understand her job (press secretary). Her job was to get Bernie's message out and butter up the media so Bernie could get good coverage. Instead, she just trolled other candidates and journalist's twitter feed. Like no one cares about Neera Tanden, so why waste time getting into a twitter fight with her?

[Kleine Scheiße]

His most online staff were more of a draining liability, rather than being actively harmful. The "extremely online" problem came from how the Sanders campaign loudly decided that there was nothing wrong with their base and that it was just nobodies on Twitter being mean, when in reality, people saying dumb things on social media was a red herring cast in terribly bad faith.  They very easily could have provided a nuanced response and did not because they did not see it as a problem. The rest of the field did, and acted accordingly. The truth lies somewhere in-between.

[Figueira]

Tweets can still have an impact on non-Twitter-users if they're widely reported in the media.

That said, I doubt these tweets in particular had any meaningful impact.

[Rookie Yinzer]

The latter is not true. They were just an embodiment of how out of touch he was with the Democratic electorate and how toxic his candidacy was to the supporters of other candidates.

[Tintrlvr]

I don't think the tweets themselves were harmful, except around the edges; it was more that they were emblematic of how far away from most of the Democratic primary electorate Sanders's activists and base really were.

[chibul]

First of all overwhelmingly Bernie's voters were young, so I think plenty of them were aware of Sirota and Brehna Joy Grey. Older people had no idea who they were. I think if older voters had been exposed to Sirota, and Brehna Joy Grey on a regular basis his favorables would have been *WAY* underwater.

The thing that Bernie supporters do not understand is that in order to win elections you need to build coalitions and support people that don't agree with you on every issue. Litmus tests is what killed Bernie Sanders in my opinion. Most of the Bernie supporters I saw framed every issue as Capitalist vs The Working Class and if you say something like "If Trump beats Biden, woman may lose their right to get an abortion", they will say "So what, capitalists will still be in power"

If your surrogates start tweeting things like "Kamala Harris doesn't believe in M4A, she wants your kids to die" (I think she actually was a cosponser on the M4A bill but she got attacked for not being for M4A) or "Pete Buttigieg is a deplorable human being, he took money from 6 billionaires".  When you start attacking people like that, people who like Kamala Harris or Pete Buttigieg "well if they don't like Kamala Harris well then they probably don't like me".  I think it was disproportionately younger people that saw this but I did talk to older democrats that had supported George McGovern in 1972 that saw Nina Turner make appearances on TV and say "I can't vote for Bernie Sanders, that Nina Turner lady is terrible"

In the end Bernie wanted a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party. He went back to being an independent when he dropped out in 2016 and he hired a bunch of Green Party pro-Jill Stein people that had no loyalty to the Democratic Party which I think did a lot of damage. He should have stayed in the Democratic Party, hired experienced Democratic Party people to run the campaign and be it's surrogates. The hostile takeover thing is very tough to pull off.

I've seen Sanders try to compare himself to FDR. Well FDR was a democrat, is Sanders too good to be a democrat?
 

[redjohn]

I don't think it's that complicated. Biden was seen as a more pragmatic and reliable option than Bernie, people thought he had a better shot of beating Trump. I think people attributing Bernie's loss to his online supporters or staff are missing the obvious point.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Like others said, it wasn't the tweets per se that damaged Sanders. It was the message they conveyed that anybody who didn't support unconditionally Sanders and his policies was a corporate shill, a sellout, and an all around horrible person who wanted to see people die in the streets. Brie Brie and Sirota burned all bridges with any possible ally and ensured the fact that Sanders would be stuck at 30% even after the field consolidated.
 
Also, you can't ask from lifelong Democrats to vote for you when your top surrogates are people who endorsed Jill Stein and even after four years of Trump they blithely declare that they do not regret their vote. 

[Catalyst138]

I don't think it's that complicated. Biden was seen as a more pragmatic and reliable option than Bernie, people thought he had a better shot of beating Trump. I think people attributing Bernie's loss to his online supporters or staff are missing the obvious point.

Yes, exactly. It’s all in the electability. That’s why Biden won.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Like others said, it wasn't the tweets per se that damaged Sanders. It was the message they conveyed that anybody who didn't support unconditionally Sanders and his policies was a corporate shill, a sellout, and an all around horrible person who wanted to see people die in the streets. Brie Brie and Sirota burned all bridges with any possible ally and ensured the fact that Sanders would be stuck at 30% even after the field consolidated.
 
Also, you can't ask from lifelong Democrats to vote for you when your top surrogates are people who endorsed Jill Stein and even after four years of Trump they blithely declare that they do not regret their vote. 

This x 1,000,000

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Like others said, it wasn't the tweets per se that damaged Sanders. It was the message they conveyed that anybody who didn't support unconditionally Sanders and his policies was a corporate shill, a sellout, and an all around horrible person who wanted to see people die in the streets. Brie Brie and Sirota burned all bridges with any possible ally and ensured the fact that Sanders would be stuck at 30% even after the field consolidated.
 
Also, you can't ask from lifelong Democrats to vote for you when your top surrogates are people who endorsed Jill Stein and even after four years of Trump they blithely declare that they do not regret their vote. 

This x 1,000,000

[GeneralMacArthur]

The problem with the Sanders campaign was its overwhelming hostility towards the party, towards other candidates, towards the process in general.  That made it impossible for him to recruit allies or earn establishment support, and motivated all the other candidates to gang up on him at the end of the day.

In many folks' opinion, that relentless aggression was coming from the Sirota/Briahna wing of his campaign.  Their behavior on Twitter post-election is just the most obvious evidence of this.

[Hammy]

They do but most people here don't care about consistency--the ones saying "twitter isn't real life" are the same people that jump on the first tweet they see as evidence that the other side is bad or that 'these people' cost their person the election.

[Xing]

I don’t think anyone who wasn’t already committed to voting against Sanders really cared that much about what people said on Twitter. Most people who were soft in their support of any candidate were, for better or for worse, mostly focused on who they thought would beat Trump more easily. Most of those voters ended up going for Biden. We’ll probably never know who the most “electable” candidate really was, but Biden convinced more Democrats that it was him.

[Alben Barkley]

Twitter isn’t real life, and Bernie’s obnoxious staff on Twitter didn’t have much if any effect on his loss. I have not seen anyone actually argue they cost him the primaries, so not sure what strawman this is. They didn’t help, but most voters didn’t know or care about them. They may have turned off a few people who were into politics and considering Bernie, but most of those types already had made up their minds about Bernie one way or the other.

Going on 60 Minutes and doubling down on your support for Fidel Castro right after you become the frontrunner? That probably had a much bigger impact on the kinds of people who actually vote. Who tend to be older, moderate, and less likely to be on Twitter and more likely to watch 60 Minutes.

Generally ignoring those kinds of people and playing to the Twitter crowd — which again isn’t real life — also probably hurt.

The dumbest thing of all was that they actively intended to win with just their faction of 35% or so of the party, and thought that alienating the other 65% not only would not cost them but would even help them somehow. Because apparently getting a bunch of Twitter likes and making your base “enthusiastic” counts more than actual votes in their minds.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

30% of the party was behind Bernie. The other 70% wasn't. You can't force your way in in these circumstances.

[Anti Democrat Democrat Club]

Not particularly. I think a lot of it was just Biden clogging up the working class lane. I do think the campaign being terminally Online was a missed opportunity, but voters' minds weren't going to be changed. Nina Turner could have been a rising star in the party had she worked with them for six months and used that new platform and influence to fight for the reforms we needed. Instead, she never really got fully behind the party, and is now openly advocating for more Democrats to play hardball.

While the "Bernie Bro" stereotype was a minor factor in his loss, the narrative sticking could have been avoided. As I've said, every campaign has its Lindy Lis and Bravenaks - even Delaney's. The difference is that there is only one campaign that incorporated these types  into leading positions. Either you were a long-time believer, you were a recent convert (see: Peter Daou), or you were an evil neoliberal corporate whore who wanted to sell the country out to Trump. Having a plurality doesn't mean **** when you're unable to reach out to other people.