The bottom line question even on some of the most respected progressive websites has become: what is going on with former Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders? Has he suddenly mind-melded with all-but-certain Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump?

What would you say about a candidate if:

1. His/her followers became violent during an event.
2. His/her followers issued death threats or other kinds of threats and used the most abusive, (no-class)adult language against women?
3. His followers’ violence (no matter why they felt provoked) became a huge news story and members of his own party were gently or otherwise asking him to come out and flatly denounce it.
4. He not only didn’t flatly denounce it but suggested there was no problem and went on the attack against his opponent(s) and the party whose nomination he seeks.
5. Suggested his party better treat him fairly in the future, in a statement in which he did not come out and renounce violence by his supporters.

Yes, it applies to Donald Trump.

And, yes, it now applies to Bernie Sanders.

Has there been a Star Trek-like mind-meld we didn’t know about?

We said a lot here — and yours truly in particular — in posts when it came to Trump, the violence in his campaign events and his avoiding calls to bluntly repudiate politically-motivated violence. Now we’re seeing the same syndrome on the Democratic side coming from Sanders

. And if the enabling, encouragement, denying amid evidence that violence took place, and tacit acceptance of it was intolerable when it came to Trump, it is likewise unacceptable coming from Sanders.

Trying to have civilized political discussions, or spirited debate, even passionate frothing-at-the-mouth conflict over party rules or the use of party rules, is part of a democracy. Violence and calling women the “c”word and threatening their lives is not.

It’s irrelevant whether it involves someone with an R in front of their name or a D in front of their name.

You’d think Sanders would denounce rather than deny it for another reason: he is playing right into the hands of those who’ll excuse the excesses Trump and his supporters have tried to minimize in the outbreak of violence and ways of dealing with it at Trump rallies. Should he win the nomination, the actions of his followers and his statement during this controversey will become a GOP talking point.

What’s most notable, however, is that Sanders is causing consternation among responsible progressives and among Democrats in general who now wonder if his supporters will turn the summer convention into another 1968 convention if Sanders isn’t nominated (which by the way is likely to be the outcome).
First here’s a good chunk of Sander’s statement as released by his campaign:

“It is imperative that the Democratic leadership, both nationally and in the states, understand that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics. The people of this country want a government which represents all of us, not just the 1 percent, super PACs and wealthy campaign contributors.

“The Democratic Party has a choice. It can open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change – people who are willing to take on Wall Street, corporate greed and a fossil fuel industry which is destroying this planet. Or the party can choose to maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big-money campaign contributions and be a party with limited participation and limited energy.

“Within the last few days there have been a number of criticisms made against my campaign organization. Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a ‘penchant for violence.’ That is nonsense. Our campaign has held giant rallies all across this country, including in high-crime areas, and there have been zero reports of violence. Our campaign of course believes in non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals. But, when we speak of violence, I should add here that months ago, during the Nevada campaign, shots were fired into my campaign office in Nevada and apartment housing complex my campaign staff lived in was broken into and ransacked.

“If the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and the respect that they have earned. I am happy to say that has been the case at state conventions in Maine, Alaska, Colorado and Hawaii where good discussions were held and democratic decisions were reached. Unfortunately, that was not the case at the Nevada convention. At that convention the Democratic leadership used its power to prevent a fair and transparent process from taking place.

Here’s the reaction of four of the most respected progressive bloggers.

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is founder and publisher of Daily Kos, the largest progressive community blog in the United States, wrote two posts expressing dismay. His latest has the headline: “Amazing–Bernie Sanders still can’t tell his most crazed supporters to stop acting like Trump goons”. Here’s some of it:

Bernie Sanders, back when he was making sense.

“This ugly incident confirms that the politics of division has no place in our country,” Mr. Sanders said in a statement. “Mr. Trump should take responsibility for addressing his supporters’ violent actions.”
Today, Sanders released the biggest s–t statement I’ve seen from a Democrat since … Joe Lieberman? It’s been a while. And it’s an utter disgrace, utterly contradicting the very advice he gave Trump just two months ago.
Remember, the issue here is the reprehensible behavior we saw from Sanders supporters at last weekend’s Nevada State Democratic Party convention, and the reactions afterward. In short, the Sanders campaign lost the vote on caucus day, went into the convention with a plan to undemocratically overturn those results, then reacted violently when their plan failed. Meanwhile, the state Democratic Party chair has been harassed at home and at work with vile misogynistic comments like, “You f–ing stupid b—-! What the hell are you doing? You’re a f—ing corrupt bitch!” Then, when asked about it at a press conference today, this happened…
So after three days of pressure, and literally walking away from an NBC reporter mid-press conference when asked about it, Sanders finally issued this piece of crap response.
Your supporters are calling a top Democrat “you f—ing stupid bitch”, and you open with your stump speech? The f—? And before someone says, “How do we know this wasn’t an agent provocateur or David Brock?” fact is, if it was, it’d be easy for Sanders to condemn that, right? The issue here aren’t the a–holes making those calls, it’s that Sanders refuses to condemn that behavior.
… Maine, Alaska, Colorado, and Hawaii. Hmm, I wonder what those caucus states have in common … could it be that … BERNIE WON THEM? So the states in which he wins, great! I mean, it’s not as if the Clinton campaign organized to overturn election-night results. So yes, of course those would be run smoothly. Both campaigns respected the will of the voters. What was the case in Nevada is that Sanders supporters had a plan to overturn the will of the voters and failed.

This is only a small part of it. Read it in full and read his earlier post. In this — which should also be read in full — he writes: “This is no longer a presidential campaign. I don’t know what it is, but that moment has passed.” Also: go to Kos to read the original texts; TMV has long adhered to “newspaper standards” but they need to read in full.

John Aravosis, on the popular blog he created, Americablog:

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders issued an angry statement today, that appeared to belittle and make excuses for death threats, and violence, from his supporters at the Nevada Democratic Convention a few days ago.

Concerns are growing among Democrats that Sanders and his extremist supporters may willingly bring the same violence to the national Democratic convention this summer.

Sanders’ supporters were unhappy that several of their delegates were turned away from the convention because they weren’t registered as Democrats, a requirement of the convention. Several of Hillary Clinton’s delegates were also not permitted to enter, for similar reasons. More on the procedural details here. And there’s much more from local political reporter Jon Ralston about what really happened, and how it was Sanders’ supporters who created the riot.

The Sanders supporters, unlike the Clinton supporters, caused a near riot as a result, and forced security to shut the convention down after it was no longer believed safe.

Following the raucous event, Sanders supporters then published the private cell phone number of the state party chair, who then received death threats.

Lots of them.

Sanders has been silent for days in the face of such thuggery from his own supporters. When he finally spoke today, the Senator was belligerent, and seemed to blame the party for the violence and bullying coming from his most diehard supporters. Keep in mind that these people were Sanders’ delegates to the convention — they weren’t nobodies that he has no connection.
….This is what happens when you try to win an election by convincing people that the system is broken and that the election was stolen. They end up believing you. Sanders’ refusal to tamp down the violence is scarily akin to Donald Trump’s own refusal to help de-escalate his most extreme supporters.

What Sanders’ delegates and supporters did to Roberta Lange is simply inhuman. The woman is now afraid for the safety of her kids. Sanders thinks this is how he’s going to still win the election. In fact, it’s how he’s losing any remaining shred of dignity he had left.

Go to the link and read the entire post. He also has the original texts, and videos.

Martin Longman, aka Booman, who’s also an editor for Washington Monthly, is also concerned about Sander’s campaign, but says Clinton and the DNC do need to do some soul-searching on how it came to this and where it’s going:

Like I said, I don’t really care a whole lot about the details. Were Robert’s Rules of Order observed? Were 64 Sanders delegates unjustly decertified? I’ll leave the debate about that for others.

What I think people should be focused on, and by “people” I mean the folks at the top of the Sanders and Clinton campaigns, is how to mend some fences and get this craziness under control. Precisely because Clinton has this thing wrapped up, she doesn’t need to resort to procedural hardball to squeeze every last delegate out of the process. She needs the votes of Sanders voters in the fall more than she needs a couple more delegates out of Nevada or a disproportionate number of seats on the power committees at the convention.

And Sanders needs to inject some realism into this process. His supporters are fighting like hell for him, which is good. But they seem to think the stakes are still for the nomination. If they’re so riled up about a small handful of delegates that some of them are hurling chairs, shouting down senators, and issuing death threats, they need to hear from Sanders that all that nonsense isn’t going to accomplish anything and it needs to stop.

I don’t think bad behavior should be rewarded on any side here, but Clinton’s in a better position to be magnanimous, and it’s in her best interests, too. She should talk to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chairwoman, about making some of the concessions Sanders called for in his May 6th letter to the DNC.
Sanders is also angered that Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy and former Congressman Barney Frank will be chairing the convention Platform Committee and Rules Committee, respectively, because they’ve both been loud critics of his campaign. That’s the cost of losing, but that doesn’t mean that some concessions can’t be made to give Sanders’s delegates fair representation at the convention.

It’s a small price to pay for tamping down what could emerge as a wildfire with the potential to disrupt the convention, and it has the advantage of being the right thing to do.

If Clinton doesn’t get the party united (and, of course Sanders has to do his part, too), her unfavorables will remain high and the polls will continue to look somewhat close as too many Democrats refuse to tell pollsters that they like or will support her.

If she offers an olive branch here, she will be the main beneficiary, and so will everyone who isn’t relishing a Trump presidency.

Josh Marshall, the blogging pioneer who owns Talking Points Memo, points to the Sanders campaign for “lying” to its supporters about Sanders real chances as one of the reasons for the violence and verbal abuse. Here are a few chunks of it:

With this new blow-up over whatever happened over the weekend in Nevada we see the pretty real and even dire consequences of lying to your supporters. The Sanders campaign, especially campaign manager Jeff Weaver, has been saying for weeks that Sanders can still win and that the system is ‘rigged’ against Sanders. But the situation in Nevada is really a microcosm of the dynamic I described last month: to the extent the system is ‘rigged’, it’s mainly rigged in Sanders’ favor.

…..What happened over this weekend was that that Sanders effort to take the majority of the delegates even after losing the caucus got denied. Getting mad about that is pretty tough if you’re running under the banner of ‘democracy’. As I’ve said, I don’t think there should be caucuses in the first place. They’re inherently anti-democratic, highly effective voter suppression mechanisms. I also think there should be as little post-election day complexity and rigamarole as possible. If I show up and vote for my candidate on election day, the impact of my vote shouldn’t be hostage to whether someone oversleeps shows up late at some county meeting three weeks later. There’s just no justification for that.

For now though, that’s how it is.

But again, the Sanders campaign and particularly the supporters in Nevada are claiming that the Nevada party bosses deprived them of ‘democracy’ over the weekend. The reality is that the Sanders folks were trying to overturn the outcome of the election. You can do that in the current system. It’s not cheating. But if your banner is ‘democracy’ and ‘transparency’ you just haven’t got jack.
….If you pump people up with bogus arguments that they’re losing because they got cheated and the system was rigged, you get people who are really angry, genuinely angry, even though they’re upset that their efforts to reverse the result of the actual election didn’t work.

It’s clear there are various issues involved. But here is the one thing that can’t be compromised:

Violence is NOT to be condoned or enabled by GOPers or Dems. Looking the other way or denying it’s happening because you don’t want to criticize supporters is enabling and in effect condoning it.

Get it Donald?

Get it Bernie?

(Sadly, I doubt it…)

UPDATE..Some Tweets:

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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