Bernie Sanders, What Are You Even Talking About?

This is, regrettably, a real thing in the world said by an actual human male who asserts to be a progressive leader for this nation's future:

"I did not know Russian bots were promoting my campaign."

"The real question to be asked is" why the Clinton campaign didn't do something.

— @SenSanders

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— Vermont Public Radio (@vprnet) February 21, 2018

I have a lot of responses to "the real question" that Bernie Sanders thinks needs to be asked!

Here are my Top Five responses to "Why didn't the Clinton campaign do something about Russian bots promoting Bernie Sanders' campaign?":

1. I don't know, Bernie. Maybe it was because Hillary Clinton was too busy dodging dollar bills your supporters were throwing at her while calling her a Democratic whore to devise a strategy that would somehow convince you to believe that Russian bots were influencing your supporters, and further convince you to do something meaningful to address it, despite the fact that the sum total of your response to your supporters' — and your own campaign's — vast campaign of harassment was "We don't want that crap."

Are you really gonna pretend like you would have cared, Bernie? Like you would have done something about it? LOL. Shut up.

2. Why didn't you do something, Bernie? After all, you accused Hillary Clinton of being unqualified. And, on top of that, you were then and still are a sitting United States senator. Clinton did not hold office during the campaign and she does not hold office now. Why was it incumbent on her to do something about Russian bots promoting your campaign, but not incumbent on you to do something?

Further, even though he's scrubbed it from his résumé, your chief strategist Tad Devine spent years working for pro-Putin Ukrainian politician Viktor Yanukovych. Surely a seasoned political operative who spent so much time in Ukraine, which Putin uses as his own personal test lab, would be familiar with the Kremlin's strategies. It would be extraordinary if such a person did not recognize what was happening; did not see the proliferation of anti-Clinton disinformation on social media, especially as reports began to emerge about Russian interference, and did not even suspect that Russia was interfering on behalf of the Sanders campaign.

Why didn't you and your team do something about Russian bots promoting your campaign, Bernie?

3. Insofar as Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff were broadly talking about Russian interference in the election in July 2016, they did "do something."

Of course, maybe you didn't hear any of that, Bernie. Maybe it was drowned out by the sounds of you and your supporters not giving a fuck about Russians hacking the DNC except to use the disclosure of hacked emails to shout nonsense about primary rigging.

4. Why are you even asking this question, Bernie? Are you constitutionally incapable of taking responsibility for anything, ever? Can you maybe not just point to the nearest woman and blame her for your own catastrophic failure?

And let us be clear that this was indeed a catastrophic failure on your part, although I strongly suspect it was not just a catastrophic failure to know what the fuck was going on in your own campaign, as people far more gracious than I will allow. I suspect instead that it was a catastrophic failure resulting from and reflective of your massive entitlement, your voracious ego, and your spectacular indifference to ethical campaigning — represented by, among many other things, the promise not to attack Hillary Clinton's character only to engage in a toxic, scorched-earth campaign, of which the central attack was inherently misogynist.

You wanted to win at any cost. I don't believe that you were unaware that your campaign was getting unsavory assistance. I believe you knew, and that you didn't care how you won, as long as you did.

I wasn't sure about that until now, but the fact that your response when asked about it was to blame Hillary Clinton tells me everything I need to know. A man genuinely in the dark wouldn't carelessly suggest that everyone else, including and especially his rival, should have known. You gave yourself away.

5. Fuck you, Bernie.