You may have seen it by now, but on Friday Politico ran a “Where does Bernie Sanders get his millions?” story. That story not only involved a dishonest framing of the question, but also was rife with anti-semitic stereotypes: Not only did they photoshop Sanders in front of houses that aren’t his and with a literal money tree, they also referred to him as “cheap” in at least one of the tweets boosting the article.
I say “one of” because, for some reason, Politico decided this article was worth tweeting at least thirty-seven times.
This is a thread of the 37 times thus far that Politico and Politico Magazine have pushed this article about #BernieSanders on Twitter with different descriptors in each one. Why are they pushing this so hard and why is their Anti-Semitism not being called out by @TheDemocrats? pic.twitter.com/Hb70N3g5VZ
— OfThePeople (@Of_the_People7) May 26, 2019
A couple of Democrats pushed back on it. And of course, the awesome people working on Bernie’s campaign did too.
Can @politico explain to us how photoshopping money trees next to the only Jewish candidate for president and talking about how “cheap” and rich he is *isn’t* antisemitic?
Or are they just letting this happen because he’s a progressive politician they don’t like? pic.twitter.com/O9qvDBw4ib
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 25, 2019
Weirdly, no mainstream Democrats did. Certainly no one who thought Ilhan Omar was “invoking anti-Semitic tropes” had anything to say about that. (Then again, can we really be surprised? It’s sort of a “some of those who run forces / are the same that burn crosses” situation.)
If you want to know why Politico would do this, this brief thread summarizes it pretty well:
Before he started Politico, Robert Allbritton and his father Joe ran a bank that eventually was sold amidst charges of laundering money for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. They settled the Spanish case in 2005 for $9,000,000.https://t.co/mcrbuhnmf3
— Gregory Pecked (@Gregory_Pecked) May 24, 2019
It’s no secret what makes @Politico the envy of new publishing; they make money off of every angle. Not only do they get paid to sell the news, they get paid to accept what is news.
You think they want to make news to help Bernie or harm him? pic.twitter.com/1bczi3yDrG
— Gregory Pecked (@Gregory_Pecked) May 24, 2019
I got into the specifics of the article itself this morning. Here’s another thread…https://t.co/MCS5m0JrdW
— Gregory Pecked (@Gregory_Pecked) May 25, 2019
(The bonus thread at the end there is pretty interesting, too, for a look into how Politico covered the question of Hillary Clinton’s millions much differently.)
In a late-breaking update, The Hill joined in on the fun:
The Hill turned @BernieSanders being paid a mayoral salary and then a congressional salary into this headline: pic.twitter.com/5dKXwtit9G
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) May 27, 2019
We’ve got a little bonus for you, too. We already know our worst domestic-capitalist monsters hate Bernie Sanders; now let’s check in on our worst imperialist-capitalist monsters:
This is perfect example of why ungracious, inflexible Bernie would be disastrous candidate. Just on a human level he is unlikeable
— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) May 26, 2019
We’ve got Bill Kristol, an unrepentant warmonger who still doesn’t think he was wrong about Iraq, let alone any of the other campaigns of slaughter for profit he’s advocated, declaring that holding him accountable to reflect on his mistakes and how many people they killed is “quasi-Stalinist.” Joining him is Jennifer Rubin, neoconservative whose tepid nevertrumpism manifests itself in writing at least three slam pieces a week about Bernie Sanders for the Washington Post.
Just a reminder of who @JRubinBlogger really is, and what her values are 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/3AYvMjWqah
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) May 26, 2019
Look, for all you can criticize about Bernie Sanders– and there is a lot– the single strongest case for him as president is this: All the worst people in America, all the people who have supported every horrific and inhumane policy decision both foreign and domestic, all the people who have gotten rich off soaking the world with the blood of innocents, absolutely hate and fear him.
And it’s about time those people had the fear put into them.
P.S. Let’s check back in with everyone’s favorite divorced-dad speed-freak, Eric Garland!
So it seems @ericgarland is now explicitly and publicly threatening a presidential candidate. Absolutely disgusting.
Tweet is here: https://t.co/bZWjjpHD3b pic.twitter.com/GUoQmQv26v
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) May 25, 2019