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Ethanol-fueled [soylentnews.org] writes:

Senator Bernie Sanders, widely viewed as a viable populist alternative contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, has shown during a recent event [huffingtonpost.com] that questions about Sanders' support (including that of controversial settlements )for Israel would not only remain unaddressed, but those raising such questions would be identified by Sanders' campaign staff as a "threat" and subsequently threatened with arrest [youtube.com] if they did not leave.

Although the Sanders campaign later admitted that the incident was "a poor decision by a low-level staffer," the episode reflects an underlying tension between Sanders' base of young progressives and his comparatively friendly posture towards Israel (A 2014 Pew Research poll [youtube.com] found minority and millennial Democrats markedly more critical of Israeli military actions). At a town call event last August, Sanders lost his temper with supporters who had interrupted him to question him about U.S. Support for Israel, telling them to "shut up," [mediaite.com] and attempting to change the subject to ISIS.

Concerns about Sanders have been echoing throughout discussions of potential supporters -- notable Sanders' tendencies of intolerance towards protest and dissent, and to marginalize rather than engage critics. Of course, those actions are not only endemic to the Left -- as the Intercept article [theintercept.com] [Submitter's note: the article from which this submission is sourced] rightfully pointed out in its introduction,

"...while President George W. Bush was running for re-election, he developed a sinister reputation for aggressively banishing political dissent from his events. Bush "rewrote the playbook for organizing campaign rallies," USA Today declared, ejecting from them people who scrawled anti-war messages on signs and shirts. "

An addendum to the Intercept article points out that, since the article was ran, the Sanders campaign staffer responsible for the ejections has been removed from their position, and reiterated that the decision to remove the students does not reflect campaign policy. However, important questions about Sanders' demonstrated bias and intolerance remain.

Original Submission