I worked for Hillary Clinton. Her attacks on Bernie Sanders are a big mistake

In a new Hulu documentary and Hollywood Reporter interview, Hillary Clinton perpetuates the false narrative that Bernie Sanders supporters are largely a gang of raging “bros” who spend all day trolling his opponents online. “It’s his online Bernie bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women,” Clinton said.

The myth that Sanders supporters are predominantly raging young white “bros” whose driving purpose is to viciously troll and harass his adversaries took hold during the 2016 election and has been pushed relentlessly by his 2020 detractors. We know, because although we avoided using the derisive term Bernie bro, we still bought into that narrative in 2016. We did so as outspoken advocates for Clinton, who Peter had advised during her first presidential run.

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Peter’s history with the Clintons goes back to 2006, when he joined Clinton’s team as a digital strategist. Soon thereafter, he became the internet director for her 2008 presidential campaign. He also worked for the Clinton Global Initiative, and set up regular blog roundtables for former president Bill Clinton. Because of his personal connection to the Clintons and our belief that electing the first woman president was a worthy cause, we joined millions of Democrats in defending and promoting Clinton during the 2016 race. We all fought for what we believed in, and too many of us got caught up in a bitter internecine battle – but somehow only Sanders supporters were singled out as villains.

In the intervening years, we have very publicly reconsidered the single-minded intensity of our Clinton advocacy and apologized for exacerbating divisions between Clinton and Sanders voters. In the process, we have come to realize the extent to which the term Bernie bro marginalizes and erases the voices of millions of people of color and women who are part of the Sanders-inspired “Not me. Us” movement.

Here is the irony: as we began to embrace #NotMeUs and express support for Sanders, a cadre of Sanders haters began trolling and harassing us with the same venom that they attribute to so-called Bernie bros. They impugned our motives and character, called us traitors and sellouts, and mobbed our Twitter threads. It was a disconcerting awakening to the hypocrisy of those who slam Sanders supporters as a bunch of sexist young white males, then engage in identical behavior to those they criticize.

The lesson is unmistakable: there are angry and obnoxious supporters of all candidates. Isolating Sanders supporters and implying they are a misogynistic monolith is profoundly unfair. Why are other candidates’ backers allowed to fight hard without being reduced to a regressive moniker? While sexism and harassment are unacceptable in any forum, the hyper-focus on a small minority of aggressive online trolls purposely tarnishes an entire movement through guilt by association.

For Clinton to come out rhetorical guns blazing against Sanders weeks before primary voting begins reflects misplaced priorities on the part of the Clinton camp and an unfortunate willingness to amplify destructive myths about Sanders and his supporters. Moreover, Clinton implies there’s some equivalence between Sanders and Donald Trump, saying: “We want, hopefully, to elect a president who’s going to try to bring us together, and not either turn a blind eye, or actually reward the kind of insulting, attacking, demeaning, degrading behavior that we’ve seen from this current administration.”

There is absolutely no basis to compare Sanders to Trump. Sanders has sparked a massive progressive grassroots movement. In a recent poll, he has majority support from black voters under 35 and among all young voters. He has energized people across the country and has built an incredibly diverse and unified coalition committed to upholding core progressive values. He has demonstrated the courage to call for a political revolution and systemic change against a Washington establishment that serves only the ultra-wealthy and powerful.

While we will never gratuitously attack Clinton to ingratiate ourselves to her critics, we cannot sit back while the Democratic party establishment tries to minimize and tear down the mass movement Sanders has helped build. That includes the Obamas, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders who over the past two decades have proven unable (or unwilling) to stem a rising and emboldened right wing in America, while they continue to peddle the fiction that Sanders and his voters are “too far left”. It is long past time for a progressive overhaul of the entire party, and it would better for our country and our future if Democratic leaders encouraged the Sanders movement rather than try to erase it.

• Peter and Leela Daou are political activists who advise a number of progressive congressional campaigns