Politicians lie. Politicians are trash. And their acolytes are just as nasty. Oh yes, it seems the Me Too movement is about to claim another scalp: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Mr. Sanders isn’t guilty of sexual misconduct, but his campaign staff got a little hands-y with the volunteers. Sexism was apparently a problem, even after the campaign morphed into Our Revolution to continue the progressive fight to make America less rich, less vibrant, and something into a European cesspool. While the self-described democratic socialist apologizes to any women who felt mistreated, even admitting that not everything was done right in the human resources department, he also told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that—you know—he was a little busy running for president to address the situation. And by running, I mean, not winning the nomination or the presidency. He had to get to increase his name recognition and brand in 2016…like a good little communist.
Oh, where do all these doe-eyed, little idealists go now? The GOP is apparently a den of racists, homophobes, and icky, icky white people, while the Left has seemingly become engulfed in the very rape culture they’ve publicly vowed to destroy. Well, to the foot soldiers, the activists who think politics is a place where good work is done, that’s the mission. The command structure of this crusade seem to be saying “down with the patriarchy,” and then go on an all-out sexual harassment buffet, a ravenous horde of hypocrisy that has a 50/50 shot of getting traction in the press. It all depends if the media decide it’s newsworthy enough to betray their Democratic allies. For The New York Times, it seems they’ve decided to shed light on the subject:
So, alas, Bernie Sanders has a women problem. And saying he was too busy losing the Democratic nomination to address the concerns probably isn’t the best first step to take in dealing with the fallout now. The War on Women, which the Democrats used to destroy the GOP and Mitt Romney in 2012, is real. But the call is coming from inside the Democrats’ house. Someone is doing the harassing…and it’s not Fox News, Donald Trump, or Republicans. It’s from the most liberal and two-faced elements of the Democratic Party—and some of their allies and power brokers in the most prominent cultural bastions on the country. But no, was have to focus more on how terrible Trump was for…visiting the troops in Iraq on Christmas. In the meantime, it seems before Bernie Sanders can even think about a second run and his ways to inject left-wing steroids into our politics that will probably destroy the country, he will have to address what appears to be systematic harassment and sexism that existed in his own campaign apparatus. And there’s no NKVD to make this all go away overnight.In February 2016, Giulianna Di Lauro, a Latino outreach strategist for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential operation, complained to her supervisor that she had been harassed by a campaign surrogate whom she drove to events ahead of the Democratic primary in Nevada.
She said the surrogate told her she had “beautiful curly hair” and asked if he could touch it, Ms. Di Lauro said in an interview. Thinking he would just touch a strand, she consented. But she said that he ran his hand through her hair in a “sexual way” and continued to grab, touch and “push my boundaries” for the rest of the day.
“I just wanted to be done with it so badly,” she said.
When she reported the incident to Bill Velazquez, a manager on the Latino outreach team, he told her, “I bet you would have liked it if he were younger,” according to her account and another woman who witnessed the exchange. Then he laughed.
Accounts like Ms. Di Lauro’s — describing episodes of sexual harassment and demeaning treatment as well as pay disparity in Mr. Sanders’s 2016 campaign — have circulated in recent weeks in emails, online comments and private discussions among former supporters.
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In an interview Wednesday night on CNN, Mr. Sanders said he was proud of his 2016 campaign and attributed any missteps with staff members to the explosive growth that was sometimes overwhelming. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we did everything right, in terms of human resources,” he told Anderson Cooper.
“I certainly apologize to any woman who felt she was not treated appropriately, and of course if I run we will do better the next time,” he said.
Asked if he knew about the staff complaints, he said, “I was a little bit busy running around the country trying to make the case.”
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Some women said the fledgling 2016 campaign was disorganized and decentralized, which made it hard to know who to turn to in the case of mistreatment.
“I did experience sexual harassment during the campaign, and there was no one who would or could help,” said Samantha Davis, the former director of operations in Texas and New York, who also worked on the campaign’s advance team. She said that her supervisor marginalized her after she declined an invitation to his hotel room.
In interviews, women told of makeshift living accommodations on the road, where they were asked to sleep in rooms along with male co-workers they didn’t know. Women who had access to salary records were taken aback to learn that some female staff members made thousands of dollars less than their male counterparts.
Two delegates who supported Mr. Sanders two years ago recently told his staff that he can’t run for president again without addressing the sexism they believe surfaced in his last campaign.
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In recent weeks, a Facebook group for campaign alumni has become a sounding board for complaints about harassment, lewd comments and gender discrimination. Some alumni have requested a meeting with the senator and his campaign leadership team to address the “overall toxic atmosphere of the 2016 campaign,” according to a screenshot of a post viewed by The Times. Politico first reported on the request.
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