Sady Doyle, a Hillary Clinton supporter, resident of New York City, and freelance online journalist for the British newspaper The Guardian, has taken to Twitter in recent days to attack me, other Bernie Sanders supporters, the people of the State of Vermont, and rural America.
First off, Doyle has aggressively attacked and mocked Bernie Sanders, his home state of Vermont, and rural America:
I want to make two points here. First, Doyle, who is from the New York City borough of Brooklyn, is attacking Bernie for being from Vermont, a state that is mostly rural with small towns (although Bernie is from Burlington, Vermont, the state’s largest city, and was the mayor of Burlington for much of the 1980’s). This is a classic example of urban Democrats trashing rural Americans, which is one of many reasons why Republicans control both houses of Congress and most state governments. Second, U.S. Senators are responsible for representing the people of their home state, not serving as some kind of absolute monarch or imperial ruler, and, unlike most politicians in this country, Bernie completely lacks any kind of a royalist mindset.
Doyle didn’t stop at attacking Bernie himself. She mocked and attacked the legions of Bernie supporters, which I like to call Bernie’s Army:
There are two main themes that Doyle is using to attack Bernie’s Army. First, she’s accusing Bernie’s Army of being a group of racist and sexist Bernie supporters. Second, she’s attacking Bernie’s Army for supporting a presidential candidate who actually agrees with them on the vast majority of issues.
Regarding the first point, Doyle thinks that it’s a valid crime for white men (who are considerably less than 100% of Bernie supporters; there are many women and people of color who support Bernie) to be politically active in this country. In my opinion, if you’re a U.S. citizen, and you’re old enough to vote, it’s an important civic duty to be politically active, regardless of your race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
Regarding the second point, in regards to the Democratic nomination process, I’d rather support a candidate that I agree with nearly 100% of the time than a candidate who doesn’t really share my values but is the favored candidate of party bosses. Since America’s political party system is a strong two-party system, I support the candidate nominated by the left-most of the major parties (in this country, the Democratic Party) in the general election. However, for the Democratic Party’s nomination process, I usually, but not always, support what I think is the most progressive candidate running in a Democratic primary, caucus, etc. For the 2016 presidential election, that candidate is Bernie Sanders.
Pivoting back the first point, while I’m a Bernie supporter, I am not someone with a “bro” personality. I’m from a redneck part of Illinois, I consider myself to be a redneck, and I love country music (especially older country music) and NASCAR. I guess one could me a “BernNeck”. Also, Doyle made an implicit comparison of Bernie supporters and “PUMA” supporters of Hillary in 2008. For those of you who don’t remember who the PUMAs were, they were a group of Hillary supporters in 2008 who refused to support Barack Obama after he won the Democratic nomination. While PUMA officially stood for “People United Means Action”, it unofficially stood for “Party Unity My Ass”. While there are probably a few Bernie supporters who would not support Hillary if she were the Democratic nominee, I’m not one of those kind of Bernie supporters, as I’d vote for Hillary in the general election should she win the Democratic nomination.
Doyle didn’t stop at just attacking Bernie’s Army as a whole. She took a couple of swipes at me:
While I thank Doyle for referring to me as “heroic”, she clearly attacked me for criticizing a lame reference to pop music singer Miley Cyrus that she made about the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, as well as for saying that female supporters of the Bernie campaign (which there are a large number of), aren’t interested in silly pop culture references. Most supporters of the Bernie campaign, both male and female supporters, aren’t interested in silly pop culture references; they’re interested in making America a better place to live.
Oh, and while she was at it, Doyle admitted that Hillary is a bought-off corporatist politician:
I thank Doyle for reminding us what the primary reason we dislike Hillary so much is! Oh, and regarding Doyle’s claim that no other moderate Democrat has faced as much criticism of Hillary has, I can think of several moderate/conservative Democrats that have faced far more criticism than Hillary has. The most notable one that I can think of off of the top of my head was Mary Burke, a charter school supporter who was the Democratic nominee in last year’s election for Governor of Wisconsin (losing to Republican incumbent Scott Walker).
Last, but certainly not least, Doyle claimed that the vast majority of women that she knows are leaning towards supporting Bernie:
Keep in mind that Doyle is a known Hillary supporter, and she admitted that the vast majority of women that she knows are…you guessed it…leaning towards Bernie. Bernie is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination, and no Miley Cyrus references or attempts to divide Democrats based on gender are going to convince us to support Hillary for the Democratic nomination.
I now await the Twitter wrath of Sady Doyle…
The Progressive Midwesterner 
Doyle’s criticism of Sanders based on the idea that he’s from a small state could have also been used to disqualify Bill Clinton in 1992.
It would, in fact, be interesting to compare Arkansas to Vermont. Which is more dominated by corporate interests (like Walmart and Tyson Chicken)? Which has a richer, more diverse grassroots political culture?
What made the small state government Bill Clinton “electable” and what makes the small state Senator Sanders “unelectable?” What could it possibly be but loyalty to big corporate money? Clinton was slotted up in the late 90s by the Democratic Party elite to be President. Sanders is largely an outsider.
The idea that Sanders has a fan base in “redneck Illinois” (Little Egypt I suppose) is intriguing. I’ve been slogging through the Lincoln/Douglas debates and each one was markedly different as to whether it was in abolitionist town like Galesburg or Freeport or a Democratic Party town like Jonesboro or Charleston. Vermont and Little Egypt are both rural cultures. One is usually considered progressive, the other conservative. But how much do they have in common?
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I’m from Vermilion County, Illinois (east-central part of IL), which is roughly the northern extent of “redneck Illinois”. Not quite Little Egypt (that’s an area at the southern end of Illinois, generally along and south of Interstate 64 and outside of the St. Louis Metro area), although Little Egypt forms part of “redneck Illinois”. The main similarity between Vermont and central/southern Illinois is that both areas are largely rural with agriculture being a major industry. The main differences between Vermont and central/southern Illinois are the common types of farming (in Vermont, dairy farming and maple syrup production; in central/southern IL, mostly corn and soybean farming), loyalty to the Union during the Civil War (Vermont was strongly Union; central/southern IL was officially part of the Union, but there were a lot of Confederate sympathizers), and geography (Vermont has far more rugged terrain than central/southern Illinois)
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