I said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t know how she came to the conclusion that she’d gain more than she’d lose by leaking the “women can’t beat Trump” chat with Bernie to CNN. Especially knowing how vicious Berniebros can be in protecting their guy. There was no scenario in how this might play out that didn’t end with Sanders fans irate and vowing not to vote for her if she’s the nominee. Which, in theory, would be a price worth paying if the leak somehow catapulted Warren past him in the primaries. She can’t worry about Bernie voters boycotting next fall until she actually has the nomination in hand, after all.
But it’s hard to see how the sexism charge moves significant votes towards her in the primary. Has any identity-politics based appeal worked at any stage of this primary? What sort of voter who’s convinced that America needs to go full socialist with Bernie to save the country read about the “women can’t beat Trump” claim and decided, “Well, f*** it then”?
The Hill notes that “#NeverWarren” has become one of the hottest slogans on political Twitter this morning following last night’s fiasco. But it’s the only slogan in that vein. Ahem:
Warren is a snake?
Indeed, say some lefties, Warren is a snake:
https://twitter.com/NathanJRobinson/status/1217323658638778368
There are some Warren defenders out there too, of course. But as we saw yesterday afternoon, their defenses tend to be … uninspiring:
Still thinking about the Warren-Bernie squabble and I have a question to people who have accused Warren of lying: isn’t the lesson of #metoo and the last few years that we believe women and don’t call them liars?
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) January 14, 2020
Surprisingly, what Warren and Sanders said to each other in that tense exchange after the debate that Ed noted earlier remains a mystery. Bernie’s campaign manager was vague when asked:
“She came to raise a concern, and he said let’s talk about that later,” said Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir in a brief interview with The Washington Post. Shakir declined to provide further details about the conversation, the video of which has been widely shared on social media…
After the debate, Steyer told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that he did not know what Warren and Sanders said to each other.
“All I was trying to say was to both Senator Warren and Senator Sanders was it’s great to see you, thank you for participating in this. And whatever they were going on with each other, I was trying to get out of the way as fast as possible,” said Steyer, a billionaire environmentalist.
Yeah, the weird thing about their interaction is that Warren appears to be less inclined to make nice than Sanders, declining his offer of a handshake, even though the chatter over the past 48 hours has revolved around an accusation she made against him. Did she maybe come over to complain about his volunteers telling voters that she won’t bring new people into the party as well as Bernie would? In WarrenWorld, remember, *Bernie* is the aggressor in all this. He’s the one who went negative first via those volunteers, with Warren telling reporters that she regretted being “trashed” by her friend. Maybe she wanted to make that point to him herself.
Although, if so, it’s strange that she didn’t hammer at it during the debate itself.
Trump is enjoying this as much as all of us are, telling a crowd last night in Milwaukee that he believes Bernie’s denial. Anything POTUS can do to foment progressive discord, he’s going to do. Here’s Erin Burnett last night sounding as perplexed by Warren’s strategy as I am. Why did they leak the conversation with Bernie and then immediately start backpedaling, she wonders, insisting that it’s no big deal? As much as anything else, that dynamic is encouraging the “Warren is a snake” invective today: If you’re going to throw a punch, throw it squarely. Don’t sucker-punch and run.
CNN's @erinburnett just stated what was obvious: @ewarren's campaign leaked to @cnn reporter @mj_lee their version of @BernieSanders @ewarren private convo and the reporter & CNN then presented something unverifiable as fact. Credit to Burnett for being honest unlike her network pic.twitter.com/jU54jIHCTb
— Jordan (@JordanChariton) January 15, 2020
