Nope.

I've been very clear that there were a whole lot of disingenuous and unfair attacks on Bernie re: misogyny.

That doesn't change the fact that we (as supporters) and the campaign allowed a reactionary and misogynist dirtbag "left" to claim ownership of the grassroots. https://twitter.com/ganjaprinxess/status/1249822173499277314

Because of those disingenuous attacks, I wrote off the warnings about misogyny I was hearing from trusted, smart, and informed women I organize with because I was so fed up with the Very Online Bullshit that I didn't hear an important warning.

It was a mistake.

I've said before, women who supported Bernie were the subject of a whole lot of unfair and misogynist attacks *especially* in 2016 (remember "special place in hell"?) that implied we weren't smart enough/feminist enough if we weren't supporting HRC, that we just wanted Bro dates.

When we spoke up in 2020 about existing and being actual smart feminists making informed decisions, a lot of us were shut down by establishment folks lecturing us about how ACSHUALLY no good feminist would support Bernie because, Bro misogyny.

So, look, I'm very sympathetic to the frustration of being erased and treated less than as a woman by other women for being part of a campaign that was very much about winning reforms that could save a lot of vulnerable lives in a meaningful way.

At the same time-- and I've been a lot less agitational about this than I maybe should have been, because I wanted us to win-- the campaign itself showed again and again just a complete unwillingness to make itself a hospitable place for women.

I still shake with anger when I remember talking to Jeff Weaver after another Bernie delegate sexually attacked me in 2016, how I said what mattered to me was building in new accountability measures in any future campaign & in the 2020 DNC so this didn't happen to another woman.

I remember him swearing up and down that he took my trauma so, so seriously, how he would make it his personal mission to change DNC policy, how also just oh this was so terrible and traumatic and if I just needed to talk I could call him day or night any time forever.

I spoke to him maybe twice, politely asking if there'd been any progress on the promises he'd made to pursue change.

And then, when my story faded from the headlines?

He ghosted me.

I remember in early 2019, talking to some of the women who had been sexually assaulted and forced into terrible situations working on the 2016 campaign.

I remember their frustration and their anger.

They believed in Bernie.

The campaign didn't care about them.

I remember how finally the campaign hired a PR team to "handle" the situation.

I remember being on the phone with folks from that PR team, expressing my own pain at being discarded by a campaign I believed in once I ceased to be a liability.

I remember when they worked with that PR team to make a big show of "listening" to survivors from the campaign for an hour or two.

I remember how some of the most outspoken survivors had to fight just to even be allowed in that room.

I remember urgently talking to a woman from the PR team, begging to be in that room myself, explaining the pain I'd felt being left behind and ignored when my story wasn't a danger anymore, even after I'd been a good girl and given lip service to the campaign's handling of it.

I remember being told that no, this would be staff only (even though even staff survivors had to struggle just to be in that room).

I remember saying, this will happen again if we don't do something, I just want to be a part of doing something.

I remember being assured the time for that conversation would come.

I remember that conversation never coming.

I remember how, when all this was going down, a Bernie campaign loyalist who knew my story posted to Facebook gushing about what Hero for Survivors Jeff Weaver was for saying "oh maybe we won't hire this predator again."

I remember responding to her post any saying, no, this man is not a hero, this is a man who responded to my professional ask for accountability with obsequious offers to be my forever-therapist, did nothing, then disappeared forever when I ceased to be of threat or interest.

I remember that Bernie staff loyalist, the loyalist who'd built her brand around being a Very Principled Survivor Activist at a previous gig, DELETING that reply where I named my anger and pain.

I remember messaging that staff loyalist, saying, how could you silence me on this, how could you erase my own account of my pain and sadness around erasure itself.

I remember that staff loyalist responding that she was Facebook friends with press who she did not want seeing my story.

I remember her appropriating the language of trauma to tell me that sharing my story was "violating" her "boundaries."

I remember her changing her Facebook restrictions so I could see only her public posts going forward.

And I remember her very soon after becoming the grassroots director of New York and California operations for Bernie.

I remember the survivor staffers, the campaign professionals I'd talked to in the hardest moments, struggling to find new work.

I remember how many people sought to sabotage the organization I ran as a way of penalizing me for speaking out about my own trauma.

I remember the incredible sense of relief I felt when I found out that, in the wake of the sexual misconduct scandal, Jeff Weaver would not be running Bernie's campaign in 2020.

I remember seeing women like Briahna Joy Grey and a local organizer I respected signing on in 2020.

I remember saying, okay, 2020 will be different.

2020 will have women I respect at the highest levels.

2020 will see Jeff Weaver sidelined.

I remember the sinking feeling as Jeff Weaver stepped up again and again in important moments to speak as the voice of the campaign, the pain I felt as it became increasingly clear that the man I knew to sideline survivors was still as influential and central as ever.

I remember the moment the campaign celebrated the Joe Rogan endorsement, as though this man who regularly platformed Nazis and woman-haters deserved recognition by a campaign that was supposed to be about justice.

I remember thinking, how could they think this was okay.

I remember women in my life I trusted who kept saying, this is not a campaign that tells me I am welcome.

This is not a campaign that tells me I belong.

This is a campaign that nurtures and caters to misogynist trolls who tell me I am worthless when I ask a question.

I remember finally hearing it, and I began to remember the hundreds of Bernie-supporting men who tore into my politics and character savagely, accused me of being a Hillary plant for daring to suggest that a fellow Bernie delegate had sexually assaulted me.