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It is often assumed with little evidence that Bernie Sanders is uniquely possessive of a base of devout, loud and angry support. Most commonly known as the “Bernie Bros”, this group of mostly-online Sanders supporters has long been deemed an irreconcilable part of the progressive movement–the theory goes, that this group is majorly constituted of political hobbyists who’ve no interest but to coerce everyone else into supporting Sanders, while neglecting the crucial work of grassroots coalition-building. Several recent findings have come to put a dent in that thesis, suggesting that every candidate has their own class of ‘Bros’, resurfacing the question of anti-Bernie bias in mainstream media and its implications on the tone of national political coverage of his campaign.
The first piece of any rebuttal to the uniqueness of Bernie Bros is an assessment of the self-sorting mechanisms of temperament in political rhetoric–much has been said about Bernie Sanders “shouting” and “screaming” but as some have noted, it is merely him raising his voice as was custom in erstwhile conventions of public speaking, while signaling discontent with the status quo. Bernie Bros operate from a similar vantage point–there’s no disputing that the ideas expressed by Sanders have been…
