Sydney Ember and Katie Benner report Sexism Claims from Bernie Sanders’s 2016 Run: Paid Less, Treated Worse:
In February 2016, Giulianna Di Lauro, a Latino outreach strategist for Senator Bernie Sanders’s presidential operation, complained to her supervisor that she had been harassed by a campaign surrogate whom she drove to events ahead of the Democratic primary in Nevada.
She said the surrogate told her she had “beautiful curly hair” and asked if he could touch it, Ms. Di Lauro said in an interview. Thinking he would just touch a strand, she consented. But she said that he ran his hand through her hair in a “sexual way” and continued to grab, touch and “push my boundaries” for the rest of the day.
“I just wanted to be done with it so badly,” she said.
When she reported the incident to Bill Velazquez, a manager on the Latino outreach team, he told her, “I bet you would have liked it if he were younger,” according to her account and another woman who witnessed the exchange. Then he laughed.
….
In an interview Wednesday night on CNN, Mr. Sanders said he was proud of his 2016 campaign and attributed any missteps with staff members to the explosive growth that was sometimes overwhelming. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we did everything right, in terms of human resources,” he told Anderson Cooper.
“I certainly apologize to any woman who felt she was not treated appropriately, and of course if I run we will do better the next time,” he said.
Asked if he knew about the staff complaints, he said, “I was a little bit busy running around the country trying to make the case.”
No, and no again.
America can find a better opponent to face Trump.
Really. Is there another who has spent his/her entire career fighting for the rights of women, minorities, education, money in politics and prison reform with his name recognition, his focus, who simultaneously manages to control every thought, word and action of every single person associated with his/her campaign nationwide?
Ridiculous.
Little doubt we can find a better blogger, who doesn’t fall into obvious GOP traps.
Easily answered —
Really. You write of Sanders as though he were Dr. King. (He’s not.) It makes sense that someone with an inflated sense of Sanders’s accomplishments would find any critique somehow shocking. (On the right, many Trump supporters are similarly shocked when someone reminds them that Trump falls short of Lincoln.)
Harassment and Abuse. The story to which I’ve linked is about harassment and abuse of Sanders campaign staffers. It’s unavailing to contend (grandiosely) that Sanders has acted well otherwise if he’s acted poorly – and he has – in this case. Sanders can’t absolve himself here with supposed accomplishments elsewhere. These staffers were either injured or they weren’t; Sanders either cares or rationalizes that he’s been too busy.
A large and worthy field. There are a dozen Democrats who’ll better represent their party against Trump than Sanders will.
GOP traps. If the only choice in 2020 is between Sanders and the GOP, then you’re already ensnared in a GOP trap, as Sanders won’t be a major-party nominee.
Find a better blogger. Not a moment for you to waste, I’d hope. As I didn’t come looking for you, and now find nothing agreeable in our recent acquaintance, you’ll not be missed when you go elsewhere. Best of luck in all your future endeavors.
Thanks Adams. What was Bernie’s recent voting record on Russian sanctions? Much like Jill Stein, I feel that it is highly likely that Bernie is a witting, divisive chaos-agent (probably NOT an unwitting one).
AOC is starting to shape into that same kind of figure. A large percentage of the financial support for her campaign came from outside of New York State…and only 10% came from donors in her district. Let’s see how SHE votes in protecting our Nation from the Kremlin/mob.
You’re welcome. No need to compromise; there are better choices that come without security concessions.
Lifelong Democrat here.
Our country is at war with the Kremlin and various other mob/organized crime elements. If you view any of Trump’s actions through the lens that he is in league with these assholes, then it is the only logical thread that holds any cohesive reasoning to his actions.
Any of his actions have had the effect of: 1.) enriching himself (emoluments: Trump properties paid by gov’t for his vacations, Kushner’s property debts, Ivanka’s Chinese patents granted) 2.) enriching those whom he owes (owing Financial debts or kompromat) by cancelling sanctions on select Russian “Oligarchs” 3.) weakening western alliances (Summit with Kim Jong Un, trashing NATO, praising tough-guy Authoritarian regimes (Un, Duterte, Putin, Erdogan) 4.) weakening our own country directly (trade war, tax cut for the wealthy, any other innumerable daily declarative lies directly from Agent Orange’s lips of fingers).
Trump has been a money-launderer, for the Genovese and then Russian mob, for 30-40 years. {Period- full stop.}
The point: Our House is on fire. Trump started the fire in several places. GOP leadership is content to watch it burn and maybe help it along (likely because some of them are compromised as well). Arguing that Bernie is “the best person to put out this fire” is out-of-bounds: because a.) he is not a uniting, centrist candidate and b.) I suspect he is compromised (it’s likely some of Dems are compromised too). And a divided Dem Party (Stein, Bernie…maybe Ocasio-Cortez) is exactly what the Kremlin wants… and what they achieved spectacularly in 2016.
We’re starting to intractably argue about the best method to put out this fire. The best method is a high-powered fire hose. Bernie is a series of wet blankets… and maybe that wetness is actually kerosene. “Oopsie, sorry comrades.”
Find the high-powered fire hose and every patriotic American get behind that and hold onto it.
Thanks very much for your comments – well said, and agreed, all around. Trump’s whole life is a series of corruptions, with seemingly no limit on those with whom he’ll deal – domestic mobsters, foreign mobsters, domestic misfits, foreign dictators. Hard to think of a single decent person who has been in Trump’s inner circle, or if inadvertently within it then ever stayed for long while remaining decent.