CNN held a marathon town hall event on Monday night with some of the leading Democratic contenders in 2020, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. On Tuesday, everyone made fun of the Harvard Centrists Society for its confusing question.
During the event, Sanders was asked one of the typical inquiries about democratic socialism that he often gets, given he is the most vocal proponent in the field of radical redistribution of wealth.
Havard student Samantha Frenkel-Popell wanted to know how Sanders could support “socialism,” given that is failed in communist Russia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcMtpxVUCYI&feature=youtu.be
Sanders answered, saying that he’s never supported authoritarianism like the question was insinuating.
Sanders said he believed America’s unequal wealth was “wrong” and that we should “have a government that should represent working families and not the 1% and powerful corporations” before pivoting to his support for free college tuition and Medicare for all.
That was that until the clip was shared by the organization Frenkel-Popell helped start, the Harvard Undergraduate Centrists Society. Founded in March, the Centrists Society doesn’t actually claim to be centrist but says it just wants to avoid the standard dichotomy in American politics.
“We want Communists, we want anarchists, we want them all. It’s just about coming with a willingness to listen. That’s all we want people to do,” the organization said in a profile.
On Twitter, they called Frenkel-Popell’s inquiry, “thought-provoking.”
But that’s not thought-provoking. It’s just a standard attack, one that cherry picks troubled socialist countries like Venezuela to prove socialist policies don’t work while ignoring numerous democratic socialist countries throughout the West. People pointed this out.
A *Harvard* Centrist asked Bernie Sanders why he supported Russian Communism since all socialism failed everywhere.
— 🌹🇺🇸Sister Kate 🇦🇺🌏 (@ViewFromOz) April 23, 2019
DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM IS NOT COMMUNISM.
Ask us to explain the difference:
Australia
New Zealand
Japan
Singapore
Hong Kong
South Korea
UAE
The UK
Europe
Canada
Seems really on-brand for a founding member of the Harvard Undergraduate Centrist Society to equate social democracy with Soviet communism. https://t.co/M2Gyja11Tm
— David Austin Walsh (@DavidAstinWalsh) April 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/noise_fart/status/1120515686378426368
https://twitter.com/hashbrownbeach/status/1120679742133424128
But while the question was no doubt aggravating, the whole concept of a “Harvard Undergraduate Centrists Society” was, for many, much much worse. They were swiftly made fun of, with one user calling for them to get “wedgies.”
imagine being in college and getting so fired up about politics that you join the Harvard Undergraduate Centrist Society
— Jeremy Dodd (@JermDodd) April 23, 2019
https://twitter.com/KenJones707/status/1120671449616924673
https://twitter.com/eloise_97/status/1120677963509436417
when you learn that the "Harvard Undergraduate Centrist Society" exists pic.twitter.com/BZtTFnu518
— Rob (@robrousseau) April 23, 2019
When people continued to clown on them, the organization deleted the clip, blaming the nature of Twitter (and not, maybe, the absurdity of students rallying around jaded and middle-of-the-road politics) on the backlash.
We deleted our former tweet because it was demonstrated once again that Twitter cannot handle civil discourse and instead resorts to demeaning personal attacks
— Harvard Undergrads for Bipartisan Solutions (@hubs_official) April 23, 2019
We are an organization dedicated to fostering civil discourse and promoting positive cooperation in government, regardless of an individual’s political ideology.
— Harvard Undergrads for Bipartisan Solutions (@hubs_official) April 23, 2019
Even that didn’t go over well.
https://twitter.com/OhTheStatic/status/1120675935710269441
https://twitter.com/crushingbort/status/1120534010596417537
https://twitter.com/MacAree/status/1120668187924869120
https://twitter.com/OhTheStatic/status/1120675935710269441
Here’s hoping they throw their weight behind Howard Schultz.
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