# Clinton supporters are frothing at the mouth.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [April 6, 2016, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341 "2016-04-06T13:57:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/21 "2016-04-06T19:58:35Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> And here you are illustrating my point pretty beautifully.
>
> Someone out there somewhere has certainly said all those things about Clinton. You claim that this behavior is most common “by far” among Sanders supporters.
The specific set of comments displaying a willingness to not or only grudgingly vote for Clinton are present in this venue. Comments displaying a willingness to not or only grudgingly vote for Sanders are not present in this venue. When asked, Clinton supporters have near universally expressed a wholehearted willingness to support Sanders if he were to win. When asked, Sanders supporters have shown only the slightest interest, at most, in voting for Clinton. It’s of a different character than talking about emails or Wall Street or extortion.
The accusatory hyperbole is just obnoxious and isn’t going to change anything anyway. The vote-blocking is actually a threat to allow a Republican victory. It’s selfish, sulky, and ultimately vindictive.
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> For example, he may not see any Clinton supporters threaten not to vote for Sanders. This is true because Clinton is in the lead. Of course her supporters are not making such threats.
Clinton supporters have clearly expressed a willingness to vote for Sanders if he were to be the winner. I’ve seen it many times without all the “holding my nose” horseshit either.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/22 "2016-04-06T20:02:51Z")
Clinton rallies are a great place to meet loose women of a certain age …
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/23 "2016-04-06T20:09:38Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#):
>
> The specific set of comments displaying a willingness to not or only grudgingly vote for Clinton are present in this venue. Comments displaying a willingness to not or only grudgingly vote for Sanders are not present in this venue.
Well, some might characterize my recent comments about Sanders’s past (and present?) acceptance of woo as a grudging vote. But as I’ve said a few times, he’s so much better than the Republicans that while it might be a dealbreaker in a primary, it wouldn’t be grudging in a general election.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/24 "2016-04-06T20:39:38Z")
> [@Samuel Johnson](#):
>
> The Irish are an honest race. They never speak well of each other.
The Bernie and Hillary supporters on the SDMB seem equally honest.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/25 "2016-04-06T20:43:22Z")
**SlackerInc** certainly has been doing a lot of frothing lately, almost at **Hank Beecher** level. It’s been amazing to watch, really,’
> [@Feel the #extortion Bernie has planned](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feel-the-extortion-bernie-has-planned/750443/540):
>
> Now, Obama has not accomplished a lot else during his administration, and you can chalk some of that up to wilful obstructionism, but I also haven’t seen a lot of TRYING to pass progressive policies out of Obama. He just doesn’t seem INTERESTED, you know?
> [@Feel the #extortion Bernie has planned](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/feel-the-extortion-bernie-has-planned/750443/549):
>
> This is psychotic-break level divorced from reality, but I am not going to try to get through to you, and I’m done begging ridiculous people to vote Democratic. Buh-bye, go play in your Jill Stein sandbox; the grownups will take care of the country for you.
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### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/26 "2016-04-06T20:43:54Z")
> [@Shodan](#):
>
> The Bernie and Hillary supporters on the SDMB seem equally honest.
>
> Regards,
> Shodan
Everyone except Clinton herself is unimpeachable in the Clinton camp.
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### Author:  [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/27 "2016-04-06T20:53:10Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> But, again, the evidence most assuredly does not point to “everyone is crazy and mean.” I think it’s quite clear that the vast majority of posters in elections behave pretty reasonably regardless of which candidate they support. In my “anti-Clinton” thread currently in elections, I don’t think I can really tell which of my interlocutors supports which candidate just based on the posts themselves.
>
> So by its very nature your inquiry is looking at a handful of people. I suspect they are the kind of people who post over-the-top strident things about _any_ topic. It just isn’t that interesting or meaningful to say whether it’s 8 rabid anti-Sanders folks or just 5, and vice versa.
I agree with your initial few sentences completely, and if I was not clear, my point is that crazy and meanness, in whatever degree it persists, persists across the political spectrum, and certainly persists within the narrow band of the political spectrum that encompasses both Sanders and Clinton.
I make this claim in opposition to the noisiest among Clinton’s supporters who seem to claim that Sanders & co. is the only cohort with mean and angry people in it.
Yes, we’re talking about a minority, but it is a minority that is framing the discussion, and I am tired of watching pots calling the kettles black, while everyone else nods sagely and thanks the pots for finally having the balls to stand up to the nasty kettles.
And you say it’s not interesting to you, which is fine. We don’t have to bicker and argue about who killed who. However, many of the “anti-Bernie” posts in the Elections forum seem to focus on the imbalance of negative rhetoric that supposedly comes from the Sanders camp, or at least reference the ‘Bernheads’ or ‘Berniebros’. My object is to call that assumption into question.
And I think that I managed to do that in a reasonably fair manner.
The fact that anyone could read my OP and consider it “frothing at the mouth” (and somehow reinforcing their truth that only a Bernhead could say something as unreasonable as 'some Clinton supporters are just as bad as some Sanders supporters, and on this board they even seem to outnumber the ‘bad’ Sanders supporters), is sad, and says a lot about what passes for debate, discourse, and discussion.
None of us are as smart as we think we are.
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### Author:  [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/28 "2016-04-06T20:57:57Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> Which part of my post would you label as “frothing at the mouth”?
Can we start with the title of your thread and move on from there?
It’s crap like this that had me unsubscribing from the r/politics thread over on Reddit. We get it. Clinton bad. Sanders good. Uh huh. And where were you during the midterm elections, Sanders fans?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/29 "2016-04-06T21:01:44Z")
> [@Finagle](#):
>
> It’s crap like this that had me unsubscribing from the r/politics thread over on Reddit. We get it. Clinton bad. Sanders good. Uh huh. And where were you during the midterm elections, Sanders fans?
Uhm… in Middle School?
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/30 "2016-04-06T21:55:26Z")
> [@Finagle](#):
>
> Can we start with the title of your thread and move on from there?
No. Reading the title of something and ignoring the content is, well, deliberate ignorance.
The OP says nothing about Bernie good / Clinton bad. It calls out the Clinton supporters on this board for being the ones lashing out at Bernie supporters, while claiming the opposite. It’s calling them hypocrites, since they do it too. Seems like such would be right up your alley if you hate /r/politics–it’s calling out exactly what you are calling out.
“Frothing at the mouth” means being so angry that you are incoherent. It is being angry at things that make no sense. It’s not about telling people that being angry proves they are wrong. That’s tone policing.
And really fucking stupid in the Pit, where the whole point is that OPs are supposed to be angry.
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### Author:  [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/31 "2016-04-06T23:20:12Z")
> [@Finagle](#):
>
> Can we start with the title of your thread and move on from there?
>
> It’s crap like this that had me unsubscribing from the r/politics thread over on Reddit. We get it. Clinton bad. Sanders good. Uh huh. And where were you during the midterm elections, Sanders fans?
Yep. The title is provocative. Because I’m moderately ticked off at this stuff, and I’m tired of spending the last six months being on the receiving end of similar assertions in the Elections forums and just sucking it up.
But I’ll admit, the title is just a wee bit of a rant. But please, let’s move on from there. After that sentence, what else would you consider “frothing at the mouth”? What else is so nasty that you just need to throw up your hands and say “I quit.”
Where did I say anything about Sanders being good or Clinton being bad? This thread is not in any way about either politician.
Where was I during the midterm elections? At my poling place voting. Oh, but that’s right, I’m pointing at specific cases of specific behavior that I find in appropriate, and your response is, “Bernie fans don’t vote.”!?
And you blame others for the lack of reasoned, rational discourse?
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2016, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/32 "2016-04-06T23:50:02Z")
> [@Finagle](#):
>
> Can we start with the title of your thread and move on from there?
> [@BigT](#):
>
> No. Reading the title of something and ignoring the content is, well, deliberate ignorance.
That’s a great point. Finagle should have at least said something like “and move on from there”. Especially since he was talking about the overall critique, not where he stopped reading.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/33 "2016-04-07T03:13:37Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> After that sentence, what else would you consider “frothing at the mouth”? What else is so nasty that you just need to throw up your hands and say “I quit.”
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> In all of these threads, the childish name-calling and general playground bullying from Clinton supporters is so thick you can cut it like a knife.
>
> The blinders on the Clinton camp about their behavior is so strong that I almost have to believe that they are just being assholes on purpose, and then shouting “nuh-uh, you are” because they know they can get away with it.
The froth is fairly thick at that point. The ‘Summaries’ tend to be a bit less than dry mouth as well - especially comparing the descriptions you tend to use for the Anti-Sanders ones vs. the Anti-Clinton ones.
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### Author:  [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/34 "2016-04-07T17:21:14Z")
> [@Eonwe](#):
>
> There are assholes everywhere; and the more time you spend online the more you are likely to find them. But here on the SDMB, they tend to come in Clinton-flavored packaging.
FTR, I have no idea if this assertion is correct. But if it is, then I think there may be a rationale, and it has nothing to do with differences in the respective characters and personalities of the people on different sides. It has to do with the expectation - by people on both sides - that Clinton is most likely to be the eventual nominee. This affects people on both sides, but differently.
The Clinton people feel that she is going to be the nominee and the Sanders is hurting her chances in the general election by continuing to prolong the nomination fight. So they’re annoyed at Sanders and his supporters. Meanwhile, they have no reservations about what they’re doing to Sanders, because they don’t think he will be the nominee anyway.
For the Sanders people it’s the opposite. They expect that Clinton will be the nominee, and that they will themselves vote for her, and they would prefer that she be successful in the general election. So it’s not in their interest to attack her too much, both for practical reasons and due to cognitive dissonance.
Again, I don’t know if the underlying facts are correct. But if they are, this seems like a likely rationale.
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### Author:  [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/35 "2016-04-07T17:24:59Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#):
>
> This just proves that even the slightest criticism of Sanders and his flock is met with over the top hysterics. Dial it down a notch please.
Seriously, this shit is getting ridiculous.
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### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/36 "2016-04-07T18:23:06Z")
> [@DigitalC](#):
>
> Seriously, this shit is getting ridiculous.
I can’t blame them now. Sanders latest gaffe is beyond the pale. At least Hillary had the class to stay out of it today.
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### Author:  [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/37 "2016-04-07T19:36:56Z")
Can’t speak specifically about this board as I don’t think I joined until 2009. But I was an Obama supporter in 2008. Liked Clinton reasonably well but thought Obama was better.
I was irritated by some of the things Clinton did then. Some of her rhetoric seemed a bit excessive, and I was especially unhappy that she waited so long to get out of the race when it seemed quite clear she had no shot --too far behind, no plausible path to success. But on the whole she didn’t do anything seriously over the top. For the most part what I saw from her and her supporters was honest disagreement over certain policies and styles, and a clear recognition that an Obama presidency, while perhaps not as good as a Clinton presidency, would still be light years better than a President Romney/Santorum/Paul…and her supporters, in interviews, news articles, comments to news articles, generally (not always) followed along. I read very few egregious attacks by HRC supporters against Obama.
I think this board is pretty tame here in 2016, but out there in the rest of the world? Many Sanders supporters are frequently using rhetoric that I rarely if ever encountered from Clinton supporters in '08. She’s a traitor. A serial liar. In league with the Republicans. She steals elections. It isn’t hard to find these things. Again, I did support Obama last time out, and there’s no question that the level and harshness of the attacks from the challenger (again, I’m not saying here) is waaaay above what it was back then.
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### Author:  [@camille](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/camille)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/38 "2016-04-07T20:27:48Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#):
>
> But on the whole she didn’t do anything seriously over the top. For the most part what I saw from her and her supporters was honest disagreement over certain policies and styles, and a clear recognition that an Obama presidency, while perhaps not as good as a Clinton presidency, would still be light years better than a President Romney/Santorum/Paul…and her supporters, in interviews, news articles, comments to news articles, generally (not always) followed along. I read very few egregious attacks by HRC supporters against Obama.
Memories can be faulty:
> [@](#):
>
> [Clinton: McCain Has More Experience Than Obama](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/04/clinton-mccain-has-more-e_n_89758.html)
> Hillary Clinton continued her heated attacks against frontrunner Obama, claiming that the likely Repubican nominee John McCain has more experience than the Illinois senator. Hillary told reporters yesterday:
>
> ```
> “I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”
>
> ```
This article: [The Clinton Smear Campaign Against Obama](http://www.commondreams.org/views/2008/04/30/clinton-smear-campaign-against-obama) lists some of the smears through “guilt by association” with Reverend Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Hamas, and Weather Underground. It also highlights her attacks on the “activist base” of the Democratic Party:
Indeed, Clinton has attacked what she has called the “activist base” of the Democratic Party, particularly MoveOn, which has been credited for bringing many millions of dollars into Democratic campaigns and thereby lessening the party’s dependence on the corporate donors long favored by the Clintons. Blaming the group for many of her electoral defeats, she has complained of the way they have mobilized grass roots activists which have “flooded” state caucuses as a result of their ability to “turn out in great numbers.” Emphasizing her differences with MoveOn’s liberal positions on foreign policy and national security, she has tried to depict the group as far to the left, even resurrecting the long-discredited claim by Karl Rove that MoveOn opposed the war in Afghanistan.
Underscoring indications that Clinton might prefer to have the Democrats lose the presidential election in November if she isn’t the nominee, journalist Celeste Fremon has noted how “Clinton’s remarks depart radically from the traditional position of presidential candidates, who in the past have celebrated high levels of turnout by party activists and partisans as a harbinger for their own party’s success – regardless of who is the eventual nominee – in the general election showdown.”
And here is even more irony, considering the attacks on Sanders for not being loyal to the party, or supporting down ballot candidates:
Not that Clinton has cared that much about how other Democrats fare, as illustrated on her failure to support Democratic candidates in close races in most recent Congressional elections. Traditionally, Democratic Senate candidates assured easy re-election victories who find themselves in the final weeks of the campaign with more campaign contributions than they need donate their excess funds to the Democratic National Committee in order to help other Democratic House and Senate nominees in tight races. However, even though Clinton defeated her Republican opponent in the 2006 Senate race, as expected, by a more than 2:1 margin, she refused to share virtually any of her $13 million surplus in campaign contributions, money which would have almost certainly resulted in a number of additional Democratic victories in close races in this critically-important election in which control of both houses of Congress was at stake.
My emphasis. Need more? From the NY Times: [The Low Road to Victory](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/opinion/23wed1.html?hp&_r=0)
The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.
Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.
There’s lots more, and all of it is available if you do your research.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/39 "2016-04-07T20:30:20Z")
> [@camille](#):
>
> Memories can be faulty:
Indeed. Good catch.
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### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2016, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/clinton-supporters-are-frothing-at-the-mouth/751341/40 "2016-04-07T20:49:19Z")
> [@camille](#):
>
> There’s lots more, and all of it is available if you do your research.
Looks like Sanders did his research! He seems like she in 2008.
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