Bernie Sanders’ goon squad is now trying to destroy Parkland father Fred Guttenberg, and it should be the last straw
If you’re not familiar with Fred Guttenberg, you should be. He’s a Parkland father who has spent the past two years honoring his daughter’s memory by fighting in favor of gun control reform and against the NRA. He was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s invited guest at the most recent State of the Union. Now Guttenberg is being viciously attacked – by Bernie Sanders supporters of all people.
Whatever you think of Mike Bloomberg’s candidacy and history overall, he has done an admirable job of advocating for gun control. Fred Guttenberg dared to tweet something positive about Bloomberg, and that quickly turned him into a target for Bernie’s goon squad. It wasn’t just the handiwork of a few trolls or bots, either. The systematic targeting of Guttenberg has gotten so out of control, he’s now pushing back – and a whole lot of people are taking Guttenberg’s side.
The divisive trolling has gotten so out of control, Guttenberg is now reaching out to Bernie Sanders directly: “You have campaign surrogates who know how to reach me. For the good of this country, and in order to ensure the current occupant of the White House is defeated, I would like to speak with you. Done engaging with online surrogates of yours. Call me.”
Others have chimed in. Montel Williams tweeted this: “Disappointed to see Bernie Sanders supporters attacking Fred Guttenberg. Attacking the Parkland families is a weird way to get your guy nominated?” Of course this is nothing new. Large chunks of Bernie’s support base have been trying to destroy liberal luminaries such as John Lewis and Dolores Huerta since 2015, merely for committing the sin of not being impressed with Bernie’s campaign.
Meanwhile, some of Bernie’s supporters are still insisting that this is all the handiwork of Trump supporters or Russian bots merely pretending to be Bernie supporters. But this doesn’t fit with the facts. Bernie’s own campaign advisers have been caught leading the online trolling in plain sight. Bernie has issued statements about this, but only to try to pretend he’s somehow the victim of it.
If you look around social media, you’ll see that Bernie Sanders’ goon squad is costing him supporters by the hour. People who initially got behind Bernie for the sake of progressive ideals are now increasingly left wondering what happened to their movement. Yet Bernie remains quiet, meaning he’s choosing his goon squad over his legitimate progressive supporters. Bernie is making himself so radioactive, he’ll have no chance against Trump if he’s the nominee. We need a nominee who can show enough leadership to stand up to the worst of his own supporters – not a nominee who sides with whichever lowlife goons are willing to do his dirty work and stroke his ego. We already have a president who fits that description.
