#BernAnon vs #BlueAnon
And real complaints vs. gotchas
Many people, via Twitter above all, probably know what the #BlueAnon hashtag is, even if they don’t agree with it. They probably don’t know what the #BernAnon is, perhaps because, as far as I know, I’m inventing it.
That said, they can probably figure out what it is, especially per the subhead of this post.
And, with that, we’ll dig into real complaints vs. gotchas, mainly looking at a couple of specific instances of the latter.
On the former, if you’re a left-liberal or leftist, whether still inside of or else outside of the Democratic Party, there are real complaints. No national health care. Doing nothing to shore up Social Security, but just blaming Republicans. A step and a half back (not just one step) for each two steps forward on environmental issues. Internationally, marching in lockstep with Israel, and for some of us, Russia-Ukraine war issues.
Then, there’s the gotchas.
One biggie is COVID-related issues. Hashtags like #MasksUp, #MasksOn and #MaskMandates continue popping up on Twitter. That’s despite death numbers continuing to trend downward, per Worldometers, until weekly death numbers have fallen to much less than “just the flu.” (A brief blip in late July still left them at less than just the flu for that period, just not “much less.” Overall, we seem to be back to less than 100 deaths a week, which extrapolates to less than 5,000 a year.)
There is a real complaint case to be made against Biden on this issue, but BernAnon hasn’t really pushed that one. And that is that we don’t have non mRNA boosters.
Instead, the People’s CDC goes way off the rails and specific Berners like Pat the Berner run with it.
One other issue was encapsulated last week by “Proud Socialist” Ryan Knight, and riffs somewhat, indirectly, on what some Bernie —→ Trump voters like H.A. Goodman might claim. (We’ll set aside Sanders being gun-nut tolerant and many Berners trying to hide that.)
And, that is that we need to embrace White Trump voters, or seeming ones, in their economic complaints, and to do so without investigation.
Knight swallowed whole last week the claims of social media influencer Jessica McCabe, starting with not checking to see if she is a social media influencer. (She’s not the biggest, but she is.) From there, to tighten up his attempt to score points on #BlueAnon, he didn’t fact-check.
Here's the tweet.
She’s right and if your reaction is to mock her then you’re part of the problem too. Until the people of this country come together and reject both capitalist parties who use the state to enrich themselves & their corporate donors things will continue to get worse. https://t.co/ZZ0KdlN15p
— Ryan Knight ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) August 10, 2023
In my last response, I said:
And, listening through her rant? She's in Alabama. Tell me where in Alabama you have to have a six-figure salary to get a little bitty place to live. $2,000 for a studio apartment? Trulia shows lots of full 1-bedroom apartments @ $1,000-$1,500. Off to blog https://t.co/7BLVEYOnaz
— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) August 12, 2023
Simple facts. That's not mocking, Ryan. It's "fact-checking."
Jessica McCabe's video had the classic social media influencer framing; and, the fact that it was amplified on Fox adds to this. (It also raises the "coincidence or not" angle.) Someone sitting in the front seat of a car, as if they had thoughts that just happened to pop into their head while stopped at a red light, goes off on a rant. (McCabe is also on Instagram. And, she went semi-viral with a radio station profile 14 months ago. And, part of the story there is that she gave a smackdown to one of her sons about just how viral she could go, which means we should be more skeptical yet, right Ryan Knight?)
TikTok said she was from Millbrook, Alabama. Metro Montgomery. Trulia for Montgomery not only shows plenty of 1-bedroom apartments for $1,000-$1,500 a month, but even duplexes and a few houses (two or three bedroom) that look at least OK.
I founded this Substack to write about twosiderism in political opining and this is a perfect example.
Update, Aug. 28: Ryan is still willing to believe the legend of Bernie vs. the reality:
Bernie’s endorsement of Biden is a betrayal of everything he used to stand for & he’s also wrong.
Being forced to choose between two corporate parties who serve the same corrupt system is NOT democracy at all.
Bravo to Cornel West for giving the people a better choice in 2024!— Ryan Knight ☭🕊 (@ProudSocialist) August 27, 2023
The reality? To expand on a two-part quote-tweet thread?
Bernie ran in 2016 in part due to anti-Clinton animus. He made that clear, even though he did say nobody cares about your emails. (Some of us did care about the private server, but that’s another story.)
In 2020, even AFTER Dear Leader shivved him, Bernie talked about “his good friend Joe Biden.” Typical Senate-speak type stuff.
Bernie has long lusted after F-35s and in general has been a military Keynesian when it suits him.
Bernie’s co-signing blank checks on the war in Ukraine.
Bernie hates Palestinians and #BDS.