[LINK] "On Twitter, Bernie Sanders’s supporters are becoming one of his biggest problems"

[rfmcdonald]

Terrell Jermaine Starr describes in the Washington Post the decidedly unhelpful ways in which some Bernie Sanders supporters on social media are behaving--shall we say--non-constructively with people concerned about his record on racial issues.

Earlier this month, I announced on Twitter that I planned to report on the disconnect between Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and black voters. Immediately, some of Sanders’s self-described supporters raided my mentions with patronizing tweets.

Over the past few months, Sanders’s predominately white backers have used Twitter to target any black activist or journalist who dares question the candidate’s civil rights record. The battle reveals a long, simmering racial divide in the progressive movement that continues to go unacknowledged. If Sanders wants to win black voters, he’ll need to address it.

A series of Gallup polls this summer found that Sanders has a +13 favorability rating among African Americans, compared with Hillary Clinton’s +68 favorability rating. There are many reasons for Sanders’s poor polling with African American voters: his unknown name, the limited diversity of his home state, his shaky response to interactions with Black Lives Matter protesters. But the social media battles have shown that Sanders’s supporters also have become a major hurdle for the candidate in building a positive image with the black electorate.

The online clashes between some of Sanders’s white supporters and black voters came to a head after protesters interrupted the senator’s speech at Netroots Nation in July, demanding he speak candidly about police brutality. His defenders took their anger to the Web, with condescending blog posts and combative tweets that have continued unabated since[.]