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On Trolls, Snakes, and Presidential Politics
Assumptions of guilt and the burden of accountability
It began on Monday.
CNN’s MJ Lee reported on a private conversation between Senators Warren and Sanders in 2018 in which, according to several sources, he was alleged to have told her that he didn’t think that a woman could win the presidency.
Sanders immediately denied that he said any such thing, telling CNN, “It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn’t win.”
Then, at Tuesday night’s debate, the question was brought up by moderator, Abby Phillip, who asked Bernie Sanders about the allegation, which he continued to deny.
“I didn’t say it. And I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want,” Sanders said. “Anybody knows me knows that it’s incomprehensible that I would think that a woman cannot be president of the United States.”
Phillip then turned to Warren and deliberately framed her question in a way that asked not whether the incident took place, but how Warren felt about what was said. In doing so, she gave Warren something she hadn’t received so far, something few…
