In a primary season with less substance than a Transformers sequel, two candidates — and their supporters — have managed to stand out for their oft-repeated stump speeches and lack of policy detail. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump seem to have amassed a cult following who think their candidate can do no wrong and care little for policy specifics.
Every candidate in this race has his or her fair share of well-informed — and uninformed — supporters. That’s the nature of our democracy, and the more individuals engage at all, the better democracy generally gets. But certain supporters of Sanders and Trump have adopted hostile, naive or self-righteous attitudes that seek to belittle or exclude their opponents — and exaggerate their respective candidates’ lack of substance on key issues.
Even if they don’t comprise a majority, these vocal minorities can be found across social media, comments sections and protests. Perhaps ironically, given their candidates’ policy similarities, these two groups of supporters are often at bitter odds with each other — when they’re not too busy bashing their candidates’ primary opponents. When they meet in person, violent confrontation often results.
Take the DeceptiDons for example. DeceptiDons follow Trump blindly and unwaveringly, playing a game of (admittedly impressive) mental gymnastics to justify every single one of Trump’s actions and statements. They ignore hard evidence — including his very quotes — in favor of angry denouncements of “the liberal media,” “biased media” and “the establishment.” He provides them with almost no policy substance, regards constitutional rights with contempt and has shown no qualms about flipping his political positions time and again (even in the span of a week).
Yet these supporters flood social media, comment sections and blogs to denounce “Lyin’ Ted” and “Killary,” while reminding us that, yes, Trump will “make America great again” and that they’re on the “Trump train.” These supporters pass on misinformation ranging from Trump’s past to Ted Cruz’s marital life. When polls show Trump losing (especially in the general election or certain demographics), DeceptiDons show that they fundamentally don’t know how polling works. Or how anything actually works. They assume that President — read: Tyrant — Trump can make any country or business do anything, regardless of law or reality.
In perhaps the most pathetic rationalization, DeceptiDons say that Trump is not “bought and paid for” like other D.C. politicians – even as he does the buying and paying, mostly for Democrats prior to 2011. DeceptiDons want to elect the special interest directly? His assets won’t be in a blind trust, and they expect him to adopt trade and immigration policies that hurt his businesses? The man they claim will save them from “the establishment” is perhaps the biggest establishment politician of all time.
BernieBots have taken a slightly different angle, preferring to take a self-righteous, cult-like approach to their support for their fearless leader. These supporters, progressive idealists to a fault, have ruthlessly attacked Hillary Clinton, her surrogates and her supporters for a whole host of supposed transgressions, ironically mirroring right-wing attacks against her for the last two decades. The frequent attacks on Clinton being in Wall Street’s and Big Oil’s pockets are laughable considering her Senate voting record, which closely resembles Sanders’.
BernieBots’ attacks can often be found on Reddit, Twitter and Facebook comment sections, and various progressives have labeled them as “privileged,” “sexist,” “cultish” and “bullying.” The BBC ran a story showing some of the vicious racist and sexist attacks on media personalities and others who criticized Sanders or supported Clinton. These supposedly “progressive” BernieBots have denigrated into hateful name-calling and other baseless criticisms. In another example of a purity test, a Sanders surrogate called Clinton a “corporatist Democratic whore” at an official Sanders event. They often criticize Clinton for her “cheating” in superdelegates and caucus strategies, yet applaud Sanders when he adopts the same maneuvers (and while his supporters harass the offices of superdelegates). When it comes to policy disagreements, some supporters flat-out ignore overwhelming criticism of the affordability and economic effects of many of his plans. (Yet they ironically mock Republicans who deny the realities of climate change.)
In a way, they just exaggerate Sanders’ weaknesses. His self-righteousness, claims to purity and “holier than thou” attitudes have been acknowledged since his first days in Congress, as former progressive Rep. Barney Frank has consistently reminded us. His lack of substantive detail was evident in his disastrous New York Daily News interview, where he was unable to explain his plan to break up the “big banks” or articulate a coherent foreign policy. Frank again has remarked that Sanders has great idealism but little pragmatism — he can’t explain how he’d actually do things. For his supporters, though, daring to suggest his weaknesses is anathema.
In both vocal minorities, rabid supporters seek to misinform others or harass them for their political positions without substantive argument. Everyone can have a legitimate reason to support a particular candidate or idea in this election. But political conversations need to be rooted in issues and experiences, not stump speeches, hollow rhetoric or meaningless slogans.
Otherwise, these people drown out and exclude people talking about issues and how to address them. If people are personally attacked on Twitter or Facebook for simply having a different perspective, how does that accomplish anything? Especially when the BernieBot or DeceptiDon has little, if any, substance to add to the conversation. We instead spend our time trading insults — or discussing the insults, like now — and being as unproductive as the politicians we seek to usurp.
In a war between BernieBots and DeceptiCons, the destructive rhetoric hurts our political process and all of us. No matter who you support in this election, let’s keep the debate focused on records, visions and substantive policies.
There’s enough to argue about as it is.
Matt Dragonette, opinion editor, is a senior accounting and government and politics major. He can be reached at mdragonettedbk@gmail.com.
