Bernie Bro

Bernie Bro (sometimes spelled Berniebro), collectively Bernie Bros,^[1] is a term coined in 2015 by Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic as a pejorative to describe young male supporters of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2016 United States presidential election. The term remained in use for the 2020 United States presidential election.

Origin

Robinson Meyer, a writer for The Atlantic, coined the term Bernie bro in an October 17, 2015 article to describe young, white, progressive men who, in his view, support unrealistic progressive policies and promote the Bernie Sanders campaign obnoxiously. According to Meyer, Bernie Bros belong to the middle class, are "aware of NPR podcasts and jangly bearded bands", and voted for Barack Obama in the 2012 United States presidential election.^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

Reaction

Sanders campaign response

In February 2016, Sanders distanced himself from the group as a result of alleged sexist attacks against rival Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. On CNN's State of the Union program, Jake Tapper asked whether he had heard "about this phenomenon, Bernie Bros, who support you and sometimes attack in very sexist ways".^[6] Sanders replied "I have heard about it. It's disgusting...Anybody who is supporting me and who is doing sexist things, we don't want them. I don't want them. That is not what this campaign is about."^[7]^[8]

In an interview with Thom Hartmann, state Senator Nina Turner (a campaign surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders) criticized the use of the term: "I just think it is really hyped by the Clinton campaign. I mean, both candidates have people who really, really support them and sometimes in ways that are not nice. But it's the same thing, if people want to research this, it's the same thing that the Clinton campaign did to President, then Senator, Obama. I think they were called 'Obama Boys.' So it's really the same stuff recycled that there are a group of men out there that are rabid and they're sexist and they're really against Secretary Clinton."^[9] Max van Dyke made a similar point in 2017.^[10]

During the ninth 2020 Democratic debate, Sanders suggested that Russians were impersonating people claiming to be his supporters online.^[11] A Twitter spokesperson rejected this suggestion, telling CNBC: "Using technology and human review in concert, we proactively monitor Twitter to identify attempts at platform manipulation and mitigate them. As is standard, if we have reasonable evidence of state-backed information operations, we’ll disclose them following our thorough investigation to our public archive — the largest of its kind in the industry."^[12]

Other criticism

Zeeshan Aleem, a Columnist at MSNBC, argued in August 2021 that the "myth of the white Bernie Bro has quietly vanished". This was because the recent electoral success of a diverse group of Progressives effectively buried the idea of a white and male leftwing movement. Most notably, the Congressional group The Squad, several of whose members claim the same mantle of Democratic socialism that Sanders popularized in his campaigns, and which represents the most leftwing bloc in the House, "is composed entirely by people of color and effectively led by women". Even "prominent friends of the squad", like Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Pramila Jayapal, and the freshman representative Mondaire Jones, "hail from diverse backgrounds."^[13]

According to Vice News, in September 2019, women under 45 comprised a larger share of Sanders' supporters than men of the same age group.^[14] After the 2020 Nevada caucus, The Washington Post stated that he was "forcing a sudden reckoning in the Democratic party" because of his strong support from Hispanic and Latino voters.^[15]^[16]

In January 2016, The Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald called the Bernie Bro narrative a "cheap campaign tactic" and a "journalistic disgrace" and indicated that more women supported Sanders than Clinton: "one has to be willing to belittle the views and erase the existence of a huge number of American women to wield this 'Bernie Bro' smear." He also asserted a lack of evidence for the concept. He summarized his opinion as follows: "The goal is to inherently delegitimize all critics of Hillary Clinton by accusing them of, or at least associating them with, sexism, thus distracting attention away from Clinton's policy views, funding, and political history and directing it toward the online behavior of anonymous, random, isolated people on the internet claiming to be Sanders supporters."^[17]

Nathan Wellman asserted in US Uncut in January 2016 that users of the term "are essentially erasing the contributions of women and people of color to the Bernie Sanders campaign to propagate their own narrative, rendering them as invisible people. This is one of the oldest forms of violence perpetrated by white people of privilege."^[18]

References

^ Meyer, Robinson (October 17, 2015). "Here Comes the Berniebro". The Atlantic. Atlantic Media. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
^ Meyer, Robinson (October 17, 2015). "Here Comes the Berniebro Look, there is a systemic crisis occurring. On Facebook". The Atlantic. Washington, D.C.: Emerson Collective. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
^ Hess, Amanda (February 3, 2016). "Everyone Is Wrong About the Bernie Bros; How a necessary critique of leftist sexism deteriorated into a dumb flame war". Slate. New York City: The Slate Group. Retrieved May 15, 2016.>
^ Meyer, Robinson (February 5, 2016). "It's Not Just Berniebros: I coined the term—now I've come back to fix what I started". The Atlantic. Washington, D.C.: Emerson Collective. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
^ Andrews, Natalie (February 8, 2016). "Bernie Sanders on Sexist Commenters: I Don't Want That Support". The Wall Street Journal. New York City: Dow Jones and Company. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
^ "Bernie Sanders on 'Bernie bros': 'We don't want that crap'". Washington Examiner. 2016-02-07. Retrieved 2020-08-12.
^ Bereznak, Alyssa (February 9, 2016). "The Bernie Bros rule the Internet". Yahoo Politics. Yahoo!. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
^ Shastry, Anjali (February 7, 2016). "Sanders addresses 'Bernie Bros,' says he doesn't want support from sexists". The Washington Times. The Washington Times, LLC. Retrieved February 23, 2016.
^ Turner, Nina (May 27, 2016). "Great Minds p2: Nina Turner - Are Bernie Bros Real?". Conversations With Great Minds. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
^ Van Dyke, Max (9 August 2017). "Before Bernie Bros, There Were Obama Boys". medium.com. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
^ Rawnsley, Adam; Stein, Sam (February 21, 2020). "Experts Say There's 'No Evidence' for Bernie's Russian Bot Claim". The Daily Beast. New York City: IAC.
^ Javers, Eamon; Feiner, Lauren (February 20, 2020). "Twitter knocks down Bernie Sanders' suggestion that Russian trolls are behind online attacks from his supporters". CNBC. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: NBCUniversal.
^ "The myth of the white Bernie bro has quietly vanished". MSNBC.com. 9 August 2021. Retrieved 2022-05-08.
^ Solis, Marie (September 20, 2019). "Young Women Actually Make Up More of Bernie's Base Than Men Do".
^ "Bernie Sanders, powered by diverse liberal coalition, forces a reckoning for Democrats". The Washington Post.
^ "Analysis: It's not just bros — Sanders wins with a diverse coalition". NBC News. 23 February 2020.
^ Greenwald, Glenn (January 31, 2016). "The 'Bernie Bros' Narrative: a Cheap Campaign Tactic Masquerading as Journalism and Social Activism". The Intercept. New York City: First Look Media. Retrieved August 15, 2016.
^ Wellmen, Nathan (January 29, 2016). "The 'Bernie Bro' is a Media Myth. It Needs to Die". US Uncut. Archived from the original on March 18, 2016. Retrieved July 28, 2016.