By David Futrelle
On Sunday, freelance journalist Talia Jane took to Twitter to report a truly grotesque sexual message she’d gotten from a male colleague whom she later identified as Seattle Times reporter Mike Rosenberg.
Then this all happened:
- Rosenberg suspended his Twitter account at Jane’s request.
- The paper suspended Rosenberg while they looked into the matter.
- Twitter suspended, then unsuspended, Jane’s account over an innocuous tweet because some annoying nitwit got mad at her for reporting the DM, and Twitter’s abuse reporting system is so broken that annoying nitwits can get people suspended over innocuous tweets.
- Australian podcaster Aimee Terese, ostensibly a leftist, attacked Jane in a tweet that somehow managed to be even grosser than Rosenberg’s DM, and my mouth dropped open, leaving my lower jaw suspended in the air. (Figuratively.)
Before we get into #4, let’s go back to the original gross DM, sent at the tail end of a late-night conversation between Rosenberg and Jane, when the Seattle reporter suddenly transitioned from such topics as journalism jobs and the cost of living in Seattle to, well, this:
Rosenberg, who has acknowledged that he did indeed send these messages, claims that that last one was meant for someone else whose picture he was presumably masturbating onto. The out-of-the-blue strangeness of his comment had led some to think he may be telling the truth, but Jane isn’t buying this explanation.
You can find out more details on all this in Jane’s original thread, or in some of the news pieces that have been written about it already.
But I’m just going to move on to Aimee Terese’s tweet, though, because, holy hell, it’s in many ways even grosser than Rosenberg’s DM:
(This tweet has since been deleted; I grabbed the clearest screenshot I could find of it here.)
When someone asked if she really meant what she seemed to be saying, she doubled down:
And then she doubled down again:
Terese even tried to lay out a twisted sort-of Marxist case for … attacking someone with a gross sexual tweet for reporting a gross sexual DM.
(In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I am Twitter-friendly with @RivkaGheist and that as far as I can tell she is not in fact “ruling class scum.”)
In other tweets, Terese declared that Jane was “hysterical and cruel,” compared her to an abusive cop, and suggested she was a narcissist because … she once wrote an open letter to her then-employer demanding better pay and working conditions:
Shitting on someone for demanding better pay seems like an odd thing for a supposed Marxist to do, but I guess I don’t understand the finer points of the dialectic.
Terese even doubled down on calling Jane ugly:
Other ostensible leftists jumped into the fray with similar attacks on Jane, including the co-host of the Red Scare podcast:
Writer and podcaster Conner Habib alternated between sarcastic tweets laced with Marxoid jargon and … cum jokes.
Meanwhile, this guy evidently thought that the only thing this discussion needed to make it complete was a meme, er, humorously referencing the Chinese crackdown on students in Tiananmen Square.
Terese retweeted his meme, because of course she did.
It would be one thing if Terese and her pals in this discussion were just some tiny subgrouplet of a subgrouplet on the left.
But in fact they’re part of what seems to be a growing subculture of purported leftists who somehow manage to spend as much time attacking so-called “identity politics” — or IDpol, as they call it — as they do pushing their own reductionist class analysis, which as in this case often turns out to consist of little more than calling people they don’t like “ruling class scum.” They’re a sort of successor to what what was once called the “dirtbag left.”
This subculture now boasts a subreddit of its own — r/stupidpol, with nearly 10,000 subscribers — and it’s gotten celebrity endorsements of sorts from several relatively well-known names like journalist Michael Tracey — formerly of The Young Turks, now an occasional guest on Tucker Carlson’s White Power Hour — and Angela Nagle — a sometime writer for The Baffler and Jacobin whose book on the alt-right has won plaudits from none other than “dapper Nazi” Richard Spencer, who was especially pleased with her extended diatribe against so-caled Tumblrinas.
The Spencer endorsement is no fluke. Given their delight in “triggering” liberals and those on the intersectional left, people like Terese and the whole r/stupidpol crowd bear more than a passing resemblance to the alt-right — so much so that some people describe them as a new variety of NazBol, or National Bolshevism, a sort of mixture of (you guessed it) Nazi-style nationalism and Stalinesque Marxism.
I think (I hope!) that’s overstating it a bit. But these folks are truly the political equivalent of a creepy DM slide.
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@Axecalibur
The whole point, in the first place, is that the scale doesn’t appear different or even portrays Sanders supporters as better behaving than Clinton supporters. Even if we dismiss those for some reason and go by anecdotal experience instead, I’m also free to disagree. Do you think that Kasich supporters also weren’t less aggressive than Trump ones or are the same data fine to accept in that case?
As long as one can admit that, it’s fine by me. It’s not true but at least we can clearly see what’s going on here despite the pretense that the Bernie bro smear is just evenly applied criticism about bad behavior. It’s personal Clintonite bias.
@weirwoodtreehugger
I don’t see in what way the person with the statistics portraying the reality of the situation in favor of our personal experience that will differ for all of us and the refusal to come up with generic smears like “Hillary bros” or to say that Hillary supporters were uniquely awful in some way is the one acting in bad faith and not the ones who dismiss the former and do all of the latter.
Okay Robert I think this has gone on long enough.
I’ve got another question for you – who brought up Clinton? Because I’m pretty sure it was you.
HMMM.
You want us to admit that Bernie supporters were the most progressive etc etc etc. I actually don’t care. We weren’t talking about supporters, but rather a pretty specific subset of people (“Bernie Bros”) who think there can be one type of solution for every problem, in the case of the OP – socialism to solve all the world’s ills, without examining their own misogyny.
Your boy lost the nomination in 2014. Will he lose it again? I kind of hope so, because I don’t want to deal with more Bernie Bros during the next election. I mean, we’re going to, because win or lose he’s got a cult of personality and a troll army that makes people go to bat for him.
I’m having to deal with a Bernie fan ardently claiming that Bernie supporters were the bestest of everything ever and Clinton fans are TEH WORST, for instance, in this the year 2019.
lololololololololllllllll
I can’t even with this! Who’s got the bias, here? Who came in all angry and huffy about *Clinton*, when she wasn’t even mentioned?
@Robert Park
Forgotten Clintonistas already? You shouldn’t have – it’s right there in one of your subsequent posts.
(Speaking as someone who dislikes Sec. Clinton rather a lot, I found that label amusing)
Well, obviously the only people who would criticize and object to misogynistic Bernie supporters are Clinton supporters! There’s no other possible reason for that kind of behavior, doncha know? /Sarcasm
@Catalpa
Yep! Can’t be that I initially supported him, registered myself as a Democrat so I could vote for him in the primaries when I’d been independent my whole life, and then found his support of PoC and women to be extremely lacking and his rabid stans to be vile or anything. Nope, must be a die hard Clinton supporter if I dared to say anything negative about his bros!
@Park
I mean, come November, Kasich’s people got right in line with Trump’s (that’s what Republicans do), so ehhh. I guess, maybe at 1st they weren’t. 90% of the party is nazis now anyway. Point’s moot in 2019
Also, “aggression” isn’t necessarily the issue at hand here. Troll mobs are actually pretty good at seeming less aggressive than they are. So me saying ‘Fuck Sanders’ pasty ass, seditty ass, unqualified ass…’ etc is likely seen as more aggressive than 1000 Keiths ‘actuallying’ all over somebody’s mentions
And, again this is perceived aggression. So not actually a statistic free from bias (more on which later)
Oooh, snippy…
1)it’s a red flag when someone used “bias” itself as a pejorative. I could run down your litany of biases, but I’d be here all day
2)well, not just Clintonite bias
(Side note, Clintonite sounds like either a cleaning product or a rare metal, and that’s hilarious)
Robert Park,
In case you haven’t noticed, Hillary Clinton is not running for president right now. Bernie Sanders is, and the toxic behavior from that (say it with me now, everybody) certain subset of supporters referred to as Bernie Bros has resumed. I even kindly linked you an example that you ignored. I have not seen this behavior from the supporters of any of the other 2020 candidates. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, but it doesn’t appear to. Now, I’ve seen some staggeringly bad hot takes from some Biden supporters, but not harassment so much.
So to what end are you insisting we agree that Clinton supporters are just as bad and deserve a nickname? How does obsessing about a woman who does not hold and is not running for any political office serve the progressive agenda? I mean, you wonder why Bernie supporters have a bad reputation? You’re demonstrating the why in this thread.
Manboobs reader, first time poster.
I’ve seen all kinds of internet dreck thanks to years of online gaming, forums, and Mr Futrelle. I’m typically amused by the sheer hypocrisy of the typical online bully and its Greek chorus. The Aimee Therese of today reminds me of first year poli sci students in the 80s, full of concepts that are avidly read and imperfectly understood, spouted in a melange of mixed isms and shitty dogma. That doesn’t bother me.
Getting sneered at by fake Democrats does.
When Sanders decided he had a right to usurp the Democratic platform, I wasn’t surprised. In thirty years of voting, I’ve seen him appropriate a lot of causes and drop them when they became politically inconvenient. His followers have yet to prove they’re a different breed.
Pantsuit pussy.
That’s what I got called when I pointed out that much of the polling data quoted in 2019 stating that “Sanders voters are the most progressive and diverse” is cherrypicked or misinterpreted or from surveys rated < C by Nate Silver because they don’t control for demographic confounding (college town millennials don’t vote the same as rural millennials, so you have to do weighted indexing).
If your data is good, you shouldn’t have to use subterfuge.
If on the other hand I point out it’s in error, and you call me a name that assumes my political leanings, I will likewise use my sample size of YOU to draw my conclusions about your candidate and the rest of his supporters. Fair? Nope. Care? Nope.
You/your comrades come into MY party, tell me your candidate is the ONLY one who can succeed (like we should be grateful for an old white dude who didn’t even try to work with the VT governor on single-party healthcare), make up bullshit graphs that don’t in fact support your claims, deny or downplay the behavior that real Democrats experience at your candidate’s and his supporters’ hands, and then whine about being associated with Bernie bros? Nah, fam. This ain’t it.
Re-cloaking now.
@Kupo
Most young POC and women still went for him rather than Clinton so one wonders what more Clinton had to offer, other than meaningless aesthetics or a more centrist package. Same with Clinton supporters and vileness, more prominent in that community if we still have to argue the point.
@Axecalibur
The point is that I’m not saying that the Clinton crowd were somehow uniquely bad like we’ve seen in this thread with people saying so about Sanders supporters when they’re pushed a bit to tell us what they really mean with Bernie bros. I’m biased but I can at least back up that there was no difference which is my main argument or even in favor of Sanders with statistics. Yet one crowd brings up the easy smear every time.
Had I said something like “of course it’s a Clinton supporter”, I would have expected some people to take exception. Now it was “of course it’s a Bernie bro” with the clear, more general meaning since it makes no sense otherwise in the way it was used but no one else did.
@weirwoodtreehugger
Even if she were running, you’d be using the same arguments so there’s no difference.
My point is that neither do, it’s an easy smear that Clinton supporters used but Bernie supporters didn’t.
I don’t. I already know that most of it is due to political differences. What I wondered about is why Clinton supporters didn’t turn criticism on themselves and their bad behavior as much as they did towards Sanders supporters, including coming up with a nice, easy nick. That might have shown the arguments about abuse were completely genuine and not also easy political tools. And in case this one gets misread too, I’m obviously not saying that a lot of those people don’t genuinely care about abuse.
Someone brought up the atheist community and that’s a great case to see the difference. In that case it was fellow atheists arguing about sexism within the “community”, whereas in this case we have two different political groups even if similar on many matters ultimately duking it out. Some people will disingenuously use certain arguments even when their own community is no better or even worse with abuse and harassment.
We have Republicans attacking someone like Omar as a rabid anti-semite because she made some true comments about lobbying while Trump’s vile comments about all sorts of communities rather than lobbies always get a free pass by them. Should I take them seriously in that respect? There’s often something similar at play with the Bernie bro smear. People keep forgetting my first post was about fellow Bernie supporters and I naturally took exception at a specific characterization that’s used much more broadly as it was in that case. Then people started agreeing that indeed Bernie supporters brought something uniquely awful to the table compared to Clinton supporters which proves even more how the Bernie bro smear actually gets used as supposedly applied in theory.
Why are you arguing a hypothetical though? It’s 2019. Not 2016. Not 2008. I’m supporting Elizabeth Warren. I would be supporting her if Hillary Clinton were running. But she’s not. Talking about Bernie bro behavior in 2019 has fuck all to do with Hillary Clinton. So why are you making the conversation about her? Again, you seem to not realize. SHE’S NOT RUNNING FOR OFFICE RIGHT NOW.
Did I fucking mention Clinton anywhere? It’s almost like you’re not so much pro-Bernie as you are anti-Clinton, and you can’t even have a discussion about him and whether he’s any good without a, “but Hillary!” in there. Almost like you’re a misogynist or something. ?
Also, did you notice where I also “went for” Bernie in the primaries and then later discovered how weak he was on race and women’s issues? And if the only argument you have for why he’s better is that [marginalized group] was more strongly in favor in some fucking poll back forever ago and “but Hillary!”, yet you can’t articulate any way in which he actually gives a fuck about PoC or women (and neither can he, btw), then maybe his policies aren’t so fucking amazing and progressive after all.
Bloody hell, Robert. Can you talk about anything besides Clinton?
You seem really hellbent on driving this discussion into whataboutism.
We aren’t obligated to criticize every allegedly comparable group equally, dude.
@Park
Is she?
This guy is super obsessed with Clinton. I’m expecting him to be like “but her emails!” In a little bit. Almost like the poor sap is stuck in a time loop for his own imagination
I know, right? “Clinton clinton clinton”. It’s not the last primaries, MOVE ON.
And if your boy needs a ‘boogeyman’, to define himself against, what does that say about his policies? If *you* need a boogeyman to define your boy against, what does that say about your actual political involvement?
Especially since we have one, it’s trump.
@Noah Snark – hello and welcome! If you’ve been around since the manboobs time, you def. Predate me so it seems silly to offer you a welcome package, but i will just the same.
🙂
(No pressure to post again, if you don’t want to! I just wanted to let you know i saw your post.)
@Noah Snark
Welcome! That was an excellent takedown, ty ty.
Robert Park has convinced me. I am definitely not voting for Hillary Clinton in any upcoming elections I am eligible for. Good job, Rob. Your work here is done.
Hi, so I sort of see both points. I admit I’d also have posted those surveys but taking them as a grain of salt, as I’d never have expected that such views about women roles or Poc’s intelligence could exist among democrats even to the extent that it’s attributed to Bernie supporters, like around 10% and that it’s the lowest!
It doesn’t add up, if we internet was taken as example that even 1 in 10 Clinton supporters think like that, and the survey says 1 in 5.
It’s questionable data, but it suggests at least that there’s not a bigger problem in Bernie’s base, but I can see the argument that it’s more limited but louder and more extreme, hence not detected by averages. That’s what happens with candidates deemed as radical, sadly, and much more radical view than their actual ones are attributed to them.
Let’s start from an assumption, a tankie is not that bright to start with, of course he/she’s not going to vote Clinton, but either Trump or Sanders, the latter for quite crooked and tortured reasons that I wouldn’t share at all, including that he’s a white male, but that’s not his fault just because he’s a white male. Because he’s perceived as anti idpol.
While my reason would just have been him being more social democratic and less hawkish.
It’s the same reason why a sort of socialist anti feminist and/or mysogynist might vote for him and not for Clinton, it’s certainly discriminating, but does not mean he is anti feminist or pursue this politic which is just in their head, so to say. Many antisemites voted for Trump despite him being strongly pro Aipac, but that’s due to their stupidity and, in this case, well Trump clearly enabling exciting and cultivating nazi like (and “lite”) thought processes, just with jews among the good ones, but enough to resonate with the alt right.
I can also see the the point that Sanders, to an extent, could have made it more clear he had little to share with tankies, but seriously, it’s their bigoted confusion, it was clear to anyone else, including, as Robert pointed out, lgbts and, especially younger, Pocs and other minorities.
I dunno if the cynical part of my idealism can see as a lesser evil that they get absorbed by him, than Trump :), but don’t take me seriously on this.
Btw of Ilhan Omar, am I wrong or Clinton and the more centrist dems didn’t support her? I can see it’s a strong position, although I might share it and choice of words can be crucial, when people are ready to weaponize her being muslim, althoug pro lgbt and the rest, unlike them.
Not being from Us, so, I can talk about some policies or perceptions of them, possibly wrong, by Clinton, that got some criticism, I reiterate I’m in good faith and it’s not an attack on eventual supporters. I think she had a good platform on human rights, lgbts and minorities, a commendable strong stance in favor of public healthcare. Less soc dem than Sanders of course but not that much neolib on economy if I’m not wrong. The bad rap and dark sides were on foreign policy, wasn’t she against the Iran deal, the Cuba deal and contemplating a war in Ucraine, where although Putin can be criticized, we should remember that the recently turned over Poroshenko was one of the worst nazis, especially but not limited, against the Russian communities, against free speech and press, but perceived as backed by Europe and “moderates” neolib center lefts and right united. We can agree it’s a complex matter, hard to insight here.
But I’d be glad to be wrong about her, just curiousity :).
N
@Ingmar
Few things
I mean, it’s more than just perception. Anti idpol doesn’t necessarily mean anti black/trans/etc as you point out, but he has made multiple statements decrying the focus on issues of identity
AIPAC wants to help Jews (don’t think they’re doing so well or the right way, but I don’t think they’re disingenuous in their mission). Some antisemites like AIPAC cos they think AIPAC’s mission will lead to more dead Jews. So, it’s not so much a “despite” as a ‘because’
IIRC, Chelsea Clinton criticized Omar’s statements, but I don’t recall what, if anything, Hillary said. Maybe, but I couldn’t tell ya
I also agree with people who find it sketchy that people keep requiring her (and Obama) to jump into political battles. Especially when everytime they do, people are just as quick to tell em to go away (‘Hillary needs to shut up and knit’). They’re off the clock at this point. Pelosi and Schumer and such absolutely did do wrong by Omar tho
Nope. And the war in Ukraine stuff was a Republican smear to make it seem like Trump’s relationship with Putin is good actually. The ‘Donald the Dove’ stuff. Didn’t turn out quite correct in hindsight >_>
The one dedicated Sandersnista I know has moved on from Clinton hate to Biden hate. He’s still adamant that Sanders would have certainly, most definitely, have beaten Trump in the general election.
At least he hasn’t started carping about not wanting to hear Biden’s voice
@Noah Snark
I liked this comment because it does express the entitlement that leads some Clinton supports to smear Bernie supporters.
@Catalpa
Because a political group that’s worse than another is blaming the latter of being uniquely awful in some ways, often without provocation, like in this case though it took some digging for some people to really show their true feelings on the matter despite their early statements. To take an even more obvious example, if Trump supporters started telling us how uniquely racist and sexist the Democrats are, I’d argue the same point.
Lainy
I’ll repeat myself: the Bernie bro narrative, which was concocted by Clinton supporters, came up in the thread before I commented on it.
Ingmar
Yes, that’s exactly my point. I’m glad someone at least understands it with no further interpretations. That’s the thing I’ve been arguing against all along but somehow I’m obsessed with Clinton and her supporters even though they continue to bring up the smears and characterizations. And naturally, the questionable statistical data can at least be argued about as compared to anecdotes and personal experiences that will differ for all of us.
They didn’t because they cared more about supposed optics and about special interests, to the extent of implying the Muslim woman of color of their party almost had some sort of unconscious (I guess they call it “misspeaking” these days) anti-semitism she was expressing when she spoke about lobbying. A nice throw under the bus that definitely appeased Republicans or even the kind of Democrat who will genuinely think Omar was being anti-semitic in that case.
Robert Park: You seem to like questions. I’ll ask you some.
1) Who brought up Clinton, in this thread?
2) Who is the one who is forcing the discussion to be a repeat of something that doesn’t even matter, since Clinton is not running for the nomination?
3) Is this entire exchange because you have concluded that Bernie supporters are just better than Clinton supporters, and it personally hurts you that people don’t agree?
4) Based on your behaviour in this thread, do you understand why people don’t particularily like ‘Bernie Bros’?
5) Do you consider yourself a ‘Bernie Bro’? How do you define it? How do you reconcile that definition with the one that is prevelent outside of the bern-o-sphere?
But whatever, you seem to be ignoring me. Guess you can’t handle the TRUTH BOMBS, lol.
Re- this comment from Lainy –
You know that the ‘Bernie Bro’ narrative is still a current thing, since your boy is running for the nomination again? And Clinton uh… Isn’t?
Oh, forgot –
6) How do you deal with the people who have said they were originally Bernie supporters, but then found him lacking either in inclusive policies or because he refused to reign in or disavow his supporters who harassed people in a timely manner?
(Sorry for the double post)
Why do you assume that any progressive who accuses Bernie Bros of being assholes is aligned with Clinton?
Or are you instead assuming that whatever political affiliations we may have are automatically worse than Sanders supporters?
This reminds me of a tweet i saw saying that the letting the dirtbag left grow to prominence wasnt really a good idea, and this seeming acceptance of sexual harassment is prevalent in these weird anti-idpol leftist circles, I remember when Chapo Trap House posed infront of Bill Cosby’s hollywood star and dared the liberals to fight them like a bunch of people who take sexual assault seriously.