Wow. Okay. Moving right along.
So there’s a saying (I’m too young to know if it’s true) that in 1969, Nixon voters could be found everywhere. In 1974, they were getting scarce. And by 1976, you couldn’t find anyone who’d voted for Nixon.
HA Goodman started an interesting trend. At first, he was just a fairly transparent Republican operative, right? This libertarian Republican who decided to jump right into supporting a Socialist, but rarely actually says very much about his newfound love for those lefty policies–instead he pretty much does nothing but attack the Democratic Party. But “from the left”, get it? Not from the right. Maybe he’ll convince an unsuspecting reporter or voter to think he’s not a Republican, and try to initiate a narrative about the chasm between Bernie and Hillary. You’ve got Goodman’s followers booing Bernie at the convention to, uh, show their love for Bernie (or something, I’m sure it made sense to them). That made some headlines, and it kinda worked for a while, successfully drawing the media’s focus away from the actual lack of any serious split between Bernie and Hillary.
But then something odd happened after the election. He (and others) kept going, he’s still doing his Bernie supporter schtick. And this is what’s interesting about it. Using Goodman’s precedent, Trump voters can pretend to be Bernie supporters, as a means of hiding their shame. Now I’m sure most Trump voters aren’t ashamed, but already there’s this small sad tribe of Trump voters who can’t come out and be honest with the world. Are they, like the disappearing Nixon voters, the wave of the future?
Looks like these ashamed Trump voters pretending to be Bernie supporters have a new target. Surprise! It’s Bernie! Who could have seen that coming?
How dare Bernie try to stop corruption in Washington!