Stop Trying to Hold Bernie Sanders Accountable Every Time a Progressive on the Internet Has an Opinion

This is so stupid:

The concerted attacks on Kamala Harris from Sanders fervent supporters put him, IMO, on the spot. Good journos would ask him about this.

— Armando (@armandodkos) August 1, 2017

And it’s a favorite tactic of “liberals,” ie centrists, ie neoliberals. The logic is astoundingly bad, and can be expressed as follows:

1. Some person on the Internet has an opinion.

2. That person is a progressive, and a likely Bernie Sanders supporter.

3. Bernie should be held accountable for that person’s opinion.

I don’t even want to get into the Kamala Harris issue—we’ll do that soon, I promise—because this is about the absurd standards of political accountability that people like Armando (an editor at Daily Kos, per his Twitter profile) are attempting to propagate. You know when it’s fair to question Sanders on negativity directed at Harris? When he says something negative about her. Which he hasn’t.

Armando is not alone, and the strategy is not new. This was the foundation of the “Bernie Bro” movement, which was an attempt to paint Sanders supporters as racists and sexists. Half the time, the examples they cited weren’t even from real Sanders supporters, and even when they were, the notion that one idiot should represent an entire movement, or that Sanders should have to apologize for said idiot, was fundamentally absurd. (Nevertheless, it trickled into the mainstream media, and Bernie did indeed apologize for “sexism” from his supporters.)

The same thing happened in the UK to Jeremy Corbyn—it’s become a staple of the liberal center.

In case the absurdity isn’t clear, these two tweets sum it up:

Hey uhh Secretary Clinton, do you have any comment on the guy who supported you saying coal miners should die? this is good journalism to me https://t.co/Ou9ywd31To

— Paul Blest (@pblest) August 1, 2017

Good evening Secretary Clinton. I’m going to open this interview with a quote from one of your supporters, @honkyass, who called me a moroni

— ??????????????????? (@thirteenhour) August 1, 2017

Can we please be done with this?