There have been some signs recently that the divide among Democrats between Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters has not been smoothed over since the election. It seems the ongoing anger over Hillary’s loss has some Dems blaming Sanders for damaging her campaign. Meanwhile, Sanders supporters continue to believe Clinton—the consumate insider—was the wrong candidate for 2016 and that Sanders would have fared better against Trump.
Today the Hill points to some displeasure with Sanders emanating from part of David Brock’s empire:
Peter Daou, the former chief executive of Shareblue, an online venture described by the New York Times as “Hillary Clinton’s outrage machine,” blasted Sanders on Twitter this week.
“I’ll be crystal clear: Bernie Sanders has absolutely no business determining the course of the Democratic Party after the harm he did to us,” Daou wrote in one tweet.
“Until certain Dems get over the denial of how badly Bernie damaged Hillary’s public image, we will make little progress as a Party,” he opined in another.
Daou’s hail of tweets raised eyebrows because, although he held no position with the Clinton campaign, Shareblue functioned as a de facto adjunct of the official effort.
During the primaries, Shareblue constantly attacked Bernie Sanders, generating a lot of bad blood. One Sanders strategist referred to the site as “the pond scum of American politics.” As I’ve pointed out before, Daou is one of Clinton’s true believers. He has argued she never told a lie about her email system even as every fact check organization agreed she was lying and as internal emails show Clinton confidantes were shocked at her aides failure to be more forthcoming.
But that’s not the only sign of ongoing stress within the Democratic party. As I pointed out last week, Howard Dean suddenly announced he was no longer running for DNC chairman saying he feared it would be “divisive.” Later the same day on MSNBC Dean clarified that he was afraid the contest between himself and Keith Ellison could become a proxy fight. “It became clear to me that, one, if we weren’t really careful this would be a Hillary versus Bernie proxy fight,” Dean said. He added, “I was for Hillary. Keith Ellison, who is one of the people who is running, was for Bernie. I didn’t want that fight.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member