The sins of a handful of Trump supporters are as nothing compared with the organized disruption and violence perpetrated by Sanders supporters from the start.
At first they.disrupted Trump rallies, but increasingly they have disrupted Hillary rallies and other Democratic events at which they don't get their way.
They lawlessly denounce normal and peaceful processes as a rigged game controlled by the corrupt establishment and demand things go their way.
Rachel Maddow, nobody's idea of a conservative Democrat, featured video and was visibly not at all happy with the Sanders people.
Sanders' own behavior in this matter has been disgraceful, as related in the following.
Beware author Chez Pazienza's comments on Bernie's alleged egotism, however.
Sanders mob disrupts Nevada convention, Sanders refuses to condemn their behavior
For a while now, there have been those saying that Sanders shouldn't be blamed for the behavior of the delusional "Bernie or Bust" crowd: the shrieking, frothing goon squad that descends both digitally and, more recently, in the flesh whenever anyone shows support for Hillary Clinton or simply isn't adequately "feeling the Bern."
You know who I'm talking about: the tantrum-prone Veruca Salts, oblivious to how politics actually work, who traffic mostly in wrong-headed memes and meaningless buzzwords; the furious dead-enders who over the weekend turned the Nevada State Democratic Convention into a madhouse because they weren't able to bend the rules in favor of their guy; the simultaneously shameless and shameful fanatics who then responded to not getting what they wanted in Nevada by inundating the state's Democratic chairwoman, Roberta Lange, with voicemails calling her a "cunt" and threatening her life.
Yeah -- those pricks.
Maybe there really was a time when Sanders couldn't be held accountable for the actions of these people, who now bear more than a passing resemblance to Donald Trump's dangerously overzealous following.
Those days are gone, though. The beginning of the end was marked by Sanders's refusal to immediately denounce surrogates that were trafficking in conspiracy theory and character assassination.
From there, it moved to Sanders sanctioning a protest in East L.A. where his supporters shouted obscenities at men, women and children who'd come to a Clinton event, forcing them to run a gauntlet of verbal abuse.
Now today there's this: Bernie Sanders's offensively haughty and indifferent response on Tuesday to his followers' unhinged, even violent extended outburst at the Nevada Democratic Convention and his laughably tepid "condemnation" of the misogynistic intimidation tactics that have followed.
All of it over a decision by Nevada's Democratic party that cost Bernie Sanders just four delegates, a thoroughly meaningless number when he still would've been behind Clinton by 278 delegates.
At first, Sanders wasn't even willing to talk about Nevada.
When he was asked about it by an NBC News correspondent early on Tuesday, Sanders abruptly ended the interview, saying, "Okay, I think we’re going to leave that there,” and walking away as the correspondent continued to try to get an answer from him.
Later in the day came the official statement, and boy was it a doozy -- a veritable masterclass in responsibility-dodging and defiant blame-shifting.
"It is imperative that the Democratic leadership, both nationally and in the states, understand that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics," it begins, right off the bat putting the onus on the Democratic party to tolerate Sanders's disciples' inchoate rage rather than calling upon the disciples themselves to behave like adults.
From there, Sanders traffics in either ignorance or a willful denial of reality.
“Within the last few days there have been a number of criticisms made against my campaign organization. Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a ‘penchant for violence,'" the statement reads.
"That is nonsense."
Given what we saw on Saturday, with chairs being thrown and at least one person knocked to the ground, this claim is nonsense.
It's offensive in its blindness to fact.
The statement follows that up by doing two things that are just ridiculous:
One, it tries to turn the tables and allege equal victimization by claiming that months ago a Sanders campaign office in Nevada was shot at and an apartment used by Sanders's staff was broken into.
Two, it feeds, not refutes or at least mitigates, the conspiracy theories Sanders's supporters in Nevada used to justify the chaos they created on Saturday.
The Sanders campaign is now actively sowing discord by dealing in bullshit it knows its rabid fan base will latch onto with both hands.
The same author has documented the attitudes of Bernie's campaign officials and surrogates towards not only Hillary but the Democratic Party.
Describing them as rabid radicals is kind.
And it comes from the top, according to Josh Marshall, who plentifully documents Bernie's personal responsibility for and participation in the ugly rhetoric and vicious, anti-Hillary and anti-Democratic attitude of his campaign and supporters and their total lack of respect for her, the party, and the republican processes in which they play so integral a role.
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