If you follow politics on Twitter, you know folks can be absolutely brutal lobbing shade about this or that political candidate.
For some time now, some have noted that a cadre of supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) can be rather vicious in their comments.
While Sanders has attempted to tamp down accusations that his supporters are any more sharp-tongued than other candidates’ followers, The Daily Beast reports one Twitter account that has spent months smearing Sanders’ opponents in a particularly ugly vein.
It turns out the account was being run by Sanders’ regional field director in Michigan, Ben Mora. As The Daily Beast’s Scott Bixby wrote, “At least some of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ most toxic support is coming from inside the house.”
Using the Twitter handle @perma_ben, Mora was particularly ugly in going after openly gay Pete Buttigieg tweeting the former mayor of South Bend “is what happens when the therapist botches the conversion.” He also called Buttigieg “psychotic” for deploying to Afghanistan.
In another tweet, Mora told his followers he could “never trust Buttigieg because he combined the natural devious disposition inherent in gay men with a bloodthirsty careerist drive.”
The Sanders staffer also went after Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, tweeting, “Chasten Buttigieg has the vibes of a housewife whose slow burning repression is leading to an inevitable psychotic break, mark my words in 10 years he will go missing and then resurface in Ft Lauderdale after getting busted for running a meth racket w a bunch of Guatemalan twinks.”
Mora dragged Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) writing, “When [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren talks about how she knows she’s Native American because of her ‘high cheekbones’ where sis? Another lie. You look like shit.” He also accused her of being “an adult diaper fetishist.”
He mocked Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) comparing her face to “that optical illusion where it’s an old lady but also a young woman depending on how you look at it but with her it’s just two different old ladies.” Mora also said Klobuchar “looks like her name: pained, chunky, [and] confused origin/purpose.”
Mora didn’t keep his attacks limited to just his boss’s opponents.
He trolled the cast of Netflix’s Queer Eye as “neoliberals,” and said openly gay statistician Nate Silver “starts to make a lot more sense when you realize he is probably the ugliest gay man to ever live.”
Another tweet about Buttigieg seemed to allude that Mora might have been running a Twitter account with the username @FagsAgainstPete, which has since been shut down.
According to Bixby, screenshots of the tweets were shared with The Daily Beast by one of Mora’s followers hoping their publication would help Sanders to understand how ugly folks on his team can be.
Mora apparently joined the Sanders campaign last fall. He locked his Twitter account nearly six months ago so only folks who were already following him could see his tweets. But the avatar for the account clearly shows his face and links to his personal Instagram account.
https://twitter.com/scottbix/status/1232126174962311169
Prior to the publication of the story, Bixby reports the Sanders campaign did not respond to requests for comment on the report.
The Sanders campaign has since announced Mora has been fired. A statement from the Sanders campaign communications department read, in part, “we are running a multiracial, multigenerational campaign for justice where disgusting behavior and ugly personal attacks by our staff will not be tolerated.”
Sanders was asked about the tone of some of his supporters on Twitter last week during the Democratic debate in Las Vegas.
“I’m not going to tell you we don’t have some jerks out there,” Sanders said. “I do want to say to those folks: We do not want your support. If you think that what our campaign is about is making ugly attacks on other candidates, we don’t want you.”
Since the report went up on The Daily Beast, Bixby has tweeted he’s been on the receiving end of thousands of attacks.
https://twitter.com/scottbix/status/1232137526061752322
Bernie has done more for LGBT than anyone. How much you getting paid?