A civil war is bubbling within the Democrat Party between supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who believe that the Democrat establishment has been trying to sink their candidate from day one, and the establishment, which contends that voters simply showed up on Tuesday and backed who they felt is most capable of taking on President Trump — Joe Biden (D).
Supporters of Sanders, including the ever-notorious “Bernie Bros,” came out full force on Tuesday evening, placing the bulk of their frustration on Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). They believe she should have dropped out and backed Sanders ahead of Super Tuesday as a means to combat Biden’s flurry of last-minute endorsements — a phenomenon many skeptical “Bernie Bros” view as yet another orchestrated attempt by the Democrat establishment to end Sanders.
The internal strife bubbled over in the form of the hashtag #RiggedPrimary on Wednesday morning, with people on both sides weighing in on what transpired Tuesday night.
“#RiggedPrimary is BS. #VoterSuppression is real. End of tweet,” left-wing commentator Sally Kohn said:
Many showed frustration over the hashtag, contending that voters simply made a decision.
“Dear Bernie Sanders and supporters. There was no #RiggedPrimary. Black people REJECTED you. The. Fucking. End,” one user wrote.
“#RiggedPrimary. In other words, voters voted. I guess that counts as ‘rigged,'” another added.
“It’s not a #RiggedPrimary. Bernie simply didn’t get the most votes this Super Tuesday. Stop this conspiracy bullshit,” another said.
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Sanders supporters are combating the establishment’s dismissal with their own hashtag, #BernieorBust.
Nonetheless, suspicions of a rigged primary are not new, taking on a new form in January following a CNN-hosted Democrat debate. An exchange over the Warren-Bernie he-said-she-said, in particular, reignited the cries of Sanders bias:
Phillips: You’re saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman couldn’t win the election?
Bernie: Correct.
Phillips: Warren, what did you think when Sanders said a woman couldn’t win the election?
Warren: I disagreed. Bernie is my friend, and I am not here to try to fight with Bernie.
“The economic establishment, Wall Street and drug companies and the insurance companies and the fossil fuel industry, they don’t want me to win,” Sanders told 5 Eyewitness News following Biden’s wave of endorsements.
“And many of the establishment Democrats don’t want us to win,” he added.
While Sanders has not gone as far as his supporters, he acknowledged on Tuesday that his campaign is taking on the “political establishment.”