Primaries Are a Good Time to Disagree (IRL)

First in a series inspired by On Tyranny:Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder

A lot of the “obedience” triggers I’ve been experiencing lately have come from the pressure (both inner and outer) to “unify” with the (perceivedly) dominant Democrats, with the implication that if we don’t, Trump will be our fault. Sometimes, in my Bernie-ful neighborhood, my brain tells me I might be seen as at best a disharmony and at worst a threat. This isn’t the case, but it’s a tough feeling to wade through.

Urgent clumps of white men have become a mainstay at the Weaver’s Way Co-op corner (the very BEST corner if you need any kind of lefty signatures) and they feel like a threat to me, just as groups of white men can in any setting. When they first congealed there, I put on my quiet teacher voice and asked them to please talk with their teams about the bullying factor, (This NYT article had just come out: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/us/politics/bernie-sanders-internet-supporters-2020.html) but mostly I just cross the street to avoid them, running the risk of tangling with the grumpy dry cleaner across the street. Ladying is hard, even in our Stars-Hollow-like corner of Mt. Airy.

In addition to working on my own petitioning for Elizabeth, the main way I can push back is with art. Not having a yard, I’ve been filling the local telephone poles with even more watercolor sass than usual, plus some nice big Warren posters from headquarters, all decorated with ribbons and silk flowers.

Every year as a Valentine to the neighborhood, I take out all of the art I’ve accumulated throughout the year and staple them to the phone poles, expanding my like-I-own-the-place reach beyond my usual 3-4 blocks. This year, I got a melancholy windfall of flowers that the aunts cleaned out from Grandmom’s house. Washing them in the sink took days, the years and grief and not-having-a-family-headquarters-anymore evaporating into the air as the flowers dried, weighing heavy on my heart.

Armed with my bag of art, my bag of flowers, and my trusty staple gun, I set out to freeze my hands on my Valentine project last Saturday afternoon. One of my first stops was to decorate someone else’s art, a Postcards to Voters sign put up by a mother-daughter team I had the pleasure to meet one glorious day. Imagine, being in like second grade and helping design Postcards to Voters signs—amazing! ( https://postcardstovoters.org/)

I was happily stapling when a neighborhood lady I sort of knew approached me. She had just finished chatting with one of the aforementioned white man clumps.

“I have a new acronym!” She declared. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Of course!” I said, stapling silk flowers around the sign.

“AVAT! All votes against Trump! No matter what, we have to unify and get him out of office!”

I was wearing an Elizabeth button and I (somewhat paranoidly) thought this might be an obey-the-Bern lecture. (Or worse! Obey the Bloomberg!) But still! She was right!

“That’s a great idea! I said. “You should make a poster!”

“I don’t want to make a poster. I’m not a visual artist. I sing and write songs. Just like you might not like to sing and write songs, I don’t have to make visual art.”

Her voice had an edge to it that made me nervous, but we chatted away about her acronym. Another lady happened by and asked how she could write with Postcards to Voters, since she wasn’t from around here, and I told her it’s online.

“Yeah,” said Acronym Lady, “You can’t really see the “.org”—you should make that more prominent.”

“This isn’t my work to change, but you can totally do that!” This is my standard response to unsolicited critique, particularly unsolicited critique of free-labor activism—make your own!

“She keeps trying to force me to make art,” Acronym Lady said to the woman who was no doubt regretting that she’d stopped to chat, “But that’s not what I do.”

Something was awry here and I wasn’t sure what it was, but I wasn’t quite done stapling up this batch of flowers.

Acronym Lady kept on with her unity-talk until I finally pushed back, in (I swear) the mildest and calmest way. I told her my usual stuff about how this is primaries, now’s the time to disagree! With one guy bypassing the system by trying to buy the election and another candidate who was backed by Russia in 2015 and 2016, (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-the-russian-effort-to-target-sanders-supporters--and-help-elect-trump/2019/04/11/741d7308-5576-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html) there’s plenty to argue about! Plus, a lot of us were really traumatized by Bernie’s followers in 2016 etc, etc.

“So you DON’T think I should be telling people about this acronym?”

“Of course you can! Just maybe leave a little space for those of us who are in trauma.”

“Well, I was just having this conversation with a Bernie Bro who was actually capable of listening…”

The “unlike you” was implied, I think. But I’d BEEN listening for like ten minutes at this point!

I told her to stop gaslighting me and go away. Sometimes people get REALLY PISSED at me when I have a personal boundary, I can’t quite figure it out.

“No, YOU go away! This is MY corner!”

Still, I wasn’t done with what I was working on, so I kept telling her to go away and stop harassing me. I made the motion of getting out the phone to call the police, which was really dumb because there are almost no reasons to do that. What kind of street artist WOULD?!

She was shouting by the time she crossed the street. “You know what? You’re an ASSHOLE,” she hollered. “I thought you were a nice person, but you’re not.”

“Good job with the unity!” I childishly yelled. “It’s going really well!”

I’m not sure why I was the person she chose to resist, but I’m so glad she did. Her unhingedness and my own give me faith that we haven’t been swallowed up yet by tyranny, be it left or right.

But also, neither I nor Acronym Lady are okay right now. We on the left are all scared and weird from the acquittal, the missing Philadelphia snow, from the troll farms, from our own blind spots and entitlements. Amazingly, my fight or flight didn’t even activate during this exchange. Plenty of loving neighbor interactions followed—accidental canvassing, art bonding, general love. Still, Acronym Lady filled up my heart the most.

The Dueling Troll Farms of the left and right want us obedient, silent, scared, and complacent, so I hope we can hold to our IRL prickliness, our effrontery, and be downright difficult. This is a very good time for us to argue for what we believe in. It’s time to challenge each other and make each other uncomfortable and push for what’s right. This is Acronym Lady’s corner and mine and (though I wish it were very much less so) even the Bros. Fear can’t be allowed to simmer us down.

Tears and Miracles at Warren Headquarters

Last Tuesday, I put in a couple of hours at Elizabeth Warren’s Philly headquarters, calling New Hampshire to get out the vote for the primary. I was already having the blues a little for Bloomberg reasons and also because of come personal stuff, and the first round of calls really broke me. It was painful and scary hearing perfectly-nice-seeming people tell me they’d just voted for Trump and being compelled by the rules of phonebanking to disengage politely instead of screaming to the heavens.

About an hour in, I called a man who seemed delighted to tell me how much he hated Elizabeth Warren. I don’t know why, but I muddled through the call script instead of hanging up for self-preservation (darn persisting!) and he used every gaslighting trope since the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy: She’s DISINGENOUS. She’s sneaky, she’s a liar, why would ANYONE trust her, etc, etc. As I finally got it together to end the call, he said “Say hello to Mata Hari for me.” I don’t know if it upset me more that he felt entitled to firehose contempt at me or that I’d chosen to listen to any part of his Women Are Liars: The Opera.

There’s a thing in my trauma brain that says: “BE GOOD. GET SMALL.” If you behave well enough, he won’t hurt you. Unfortunately, that inner voice intersects in time with the politeness, the performed equivocalness of canvassing and phonebanking.

Saying calmly “I respect your opinion” instead of screaming “WHY WOULD YOU VOTE FOR A MAN IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 2020? OR EVER? AND WHY ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE WHITE? AND WHAT ABOUT THE MUELLER REPORT?” is a better way to be, but being diplomatic is triggering and it makes me feel surveilled and hunted.  It feels too much like obedience. That’s a PTSD problem, for sure, but it’s also an America problem.

I selected “Not Ready” on my dialer, took my headphones out, and went into the restroom and cried. I wondered if the organizers and other callers could hear me, if New Hampshire could hear me. It was a good cry, the first time in all these years that I’ve broken down in a campaign headquarters. It has been a long, painful four years. I felt dangerously close to the debilitating depression that I and so much of America, suffered in early 2017.

I’m proud that I cried. I’m proud that I came out of the restroom, wiped my eyes, and asked the organizers for hugs. They freely gave them, and I was so grateful. I got some chocolate from the snack table to ward off the (admittedly rare) dementors of New Hampshire. I wished I’d brought an extra thermos of coffee: Next time, for sure.

Those few minutes of campaign life were a beautiful miracle: the organizers and my fellow phonebankers got me talking about Gritty (“the true leader of the Democratic Party”), the time I met John Lewis, and how Elizabeth was probably proud of me.

For them, and for me, and in spite of the misogynists, I dialed back in. The first person to pick up was both heartbreaking and galvanizing: She told me she wanted to vote for Elizabeth, but it was too big of a risk—she was really, really afraid. I gave her my reasons (best choice for women’s rights and racial justice) and said I empathized but hoped she would make the brave choice, which Amy later pointed out was Gillibrand’s IP. That’s probably okay.

After that, the calls got better. Sorry Elizabeth, sorry organizers, but my heart overflowed with joy when voters told me somewhat apologetically that sorry, they’d just voted for Amy. My heart was somewhat less overflowy (but still overflowy) when they told me they’d voted for Pete. There’s so much progress, even in the middle of this troll farmy nightmare. So many reasons to feel hopeful.

I ended that day’s spate of calls talking to a man who told me that yes, he and his wife were both planning to vote for Elizabeth, they were leaving for the polls in about 25 minutes. I love them, and I love everyone who’s trying, and somehow, though it’s nuts, I love America.

Since that day, I’ve been having a depression flare-up because the Trump calls were truly harrowing. But I’m okay. I gave myself the whole weekend to do nothing but write and read and make art and take care of my apartment. I’m recommitting to caring for my mental health this election year, realizing I may not have the stamina I used to, but I still have so, so much to offer.

Guest Writer! Doxxed by Bernie Supporters

I first met the young woman who honored my with her story when she was a campaign organizer for Hillary Clinton in the summer of 2016. From the outside, she was powerful, self-assured, and hopeful in ways that put my Gen X when-I-was-her-age self to shame. I wouldn't have guessed, even with my election year + anxiety mind, how much she was going through for us. I'm really grateful to her and so angry that all of this happened to her--it's my hope that this story will spread far and wide, and that it will help folks understand why it's still and always important to speak out against the misogyny of our own side, no matter what threats we face from the right.

Doxxed

Written by an Anonymous Hillary Campaign Organizer

TW: Doxxing, Racism, Threats of Violence and Rape, Gaslighting

It’s no secret among people that know me that I worked for Clinton in 2016. My wall is still decorated in posters, my car is covered in bumper stickers, I even have a tattoo that reminds me of the good times on that campaign. However, the worst parts of the 2016 campaign still haunt me wherever and whenever I meet new people working in politics. It’s no secret among people I’m friends with that I was doxxed by Sanders supporters in 2016, but it’s something I’m not “supposed” to talk about. 

I joined the Clinton campaign while I was still a student. Originally it wasn’t because I liked Hillary any more than Bernie, as a woman I just wanted to know more about women running for higher office. My facebook was full of friends that supported Bernie, but were happy for me on the campaign. Until Caucus night in Iowa. 

The lucky part for Iowa was the Caucuses were so close and went so long that most people were asleep by the time the results came out and most people had to work the next morning, so I was left alone. By the time Super Tuesday rolled around, I had already been doxxed for the first time. 

I had gone to bed around midnight Central Time, but a few people I knew on the West Coast were still awake. I woke up to dozens of notifications on my Facebook. A friend-of-a-friend had made a post asking for people to tag the people they knew who were “sHillary sellouts” in the comments. I got tagged by someone I had worked on a class project with right before I left for the campaign. People started by replying with the generic “corporate cunt” or accused me of “voting with my vagina” until one of them decided to click onto my profile and things got a lot more personal. Whatever public info on me they could find, they commented about. In my messenger were people who screenshotted my parents and siblings profiles. They called my dad a “banana” or “coconut” and called him uneducated. I got messages that said my mom, my sisters and I deserved to be beaten and raped. 

I’m not sure if they actually sent anything to my family. If so, I never heard about it. But I spent the whole day with my supervisor reporting accounts and trying to lock my Facebook. Some of the threads I couldn’t mute or take down because the doxxers knew that Facebook hadn’t yet figured out a way to let people report comments and my name wasn’t in the original post. 

The most common comments and messages in between the threats and slurs were “you’re just too stupid to know Bernie is who is best for you.” 

We searched my name on Reddit and tried to get a few posts taken down. I didn’t have a Reddit so it wasn’t worth taking down more than the posts of my personal phone number, email, and address. Taking a look at the account, it appeared to be the same “friend” who tagged me in the first place. Luckily, it didn’t seem to have spread beyond Facebook and Reddit.

After locking down my account, I made a post about my experience. It was a little vague since I wasn’t ready to talk about the specifics, but mentioning “Bernie Bros” rained even more hell I wasn’t ready for. This time from actual friends. Comments talked about how the “Bernie Bros” didn’t exist, how I must be overreacting, how both sides had violent supporters and I was contributing to the violence by mentioning it when I couldn’t provide proof. 

The thing is, I was young and dumb. So was my manager. We didn’t know to screenshot the hate and report it up the chain, nobody told us that’s what we were supposed to do until we were trained again a week later. I couldn’t access the hate anymore, I’d already blocked the accounts. People were riled up in support of their candidates so the hate shifted from an anonymous barrage of insults to comments from friends denying my experience. I blocked more people. 

As I shifted around in the campaign and my role shifted, so did the hate. Since I was making calls from my personal phone, obviously my personal number got out. Prank calls, hate texts, my number was even scrawled in a men’s bathroom somewhere in Colorado. “A Monica Lewinsky hoe- one of Clinton’s bitches. Call for a good time.” Someone texted it, curious why my non-Colorado area code was in a Colorado bathroom. He was nice enough to scratch my number out, but not without a dick pic first.

From there the barrage of messages decreased significantly. Hate sent to my work email had to be saved in a folder, no deleting anything on the Clinton campaign, and flagged up the chain. I didn’t hear much back, there wasn’t much they could do. After the primaries were over, I did digital organizing for a state’s Democratic Party. Those messages weren’t nearly as personal, they didn’t know who I was, but my work email had 2 folders for the 2 different kinds of hate I was receiving- death threats, mostly directed towards the candidates and superdelegates from that state, and dick pics. 

I felt fairly safe and rather confident again, except my new state party was all former Bernie staffers. The email about Hillary “riding a rocket-sized dildo of corporate cash” that made me feel uncomfortable was laughed off by my coworkers and called well deserved. Cheap shots were made at the Clinton campaign’s expense on the Slack channel. The candidates and party chair had all supported Hillary, but the rest of the staff took shots at them too. As a “worker” people didn’t insult me personally or directly, but they insulted where I’d come from to get there. 

I sobbed on election night. My coworkers told me to suck it up. It was my fault for supporting the wrong candidate in the primaries. There were a lot of “I told you so’s” as I cried. 

The “I told you so’s” and “you just didn’t get that Bernie was what was best for you’s” followed me into a campaign in 2017. My full year of experience with Clinton wasn’t as good as the experience from the guy who volunteered on the weekends for Bernie during the primary. The insults followed me to a campaign in 2018 when one of my coworkers called me a “centrist pussy,” called me an “elitist rich bitch” on my birthday, and laughed in my face about how she drove across 3 states to Michigan just to vote for Jill Stein so the Hillary shills could “get what they deserved.” The gaslighting followed me into 2019 as the same thing started happening again to Warren staffers. I tried to come forward again with my new friends and instead was told “well we hear all these things about ‘Bernie Bros’ harassing people but I’ve never seen it. Hillary staffers don’t share screenshots because it was all made up.”

The thing is, it’s been years at this point. The email accounts I had for work are long gone. The phone that had all the screenshots broke after the primaries in 2016. The Facebook messages and tagged posts are long lost, and the list of blocked names on my Facebook has dwindled as people have deleted their accounts amidst Facebook’s many scandals. The internet has not lasted as long as my memories, especially as I’m continually reminded. 

“You just don’t understand that Bernie is who is best for you” has followed me into 2020 as I’ve watched Warren’s staff get caught in the same kinds of hate. 

It’s no secret that I experienced hell from Sanders supporters in 2016, but I’m not sure people knew to what extent. I’m watching the same things happen to the Warren campaign, often fueled by the same people as last time. I’ve been told that years have passed and my experiences don’t matter anymore and I should take down the posters and stickers that reminded me of the best year of my life. I’ve tried to move on and respect the best parts, but the worst parts of 2016 still haunt me as I look at the snakes spammed at Warren staffers on Twitter. It’s no secret that Bernie Bros harass people online, right?