OK. Here's the thing: I think it's important to talk about how "bend the knee," and a strategy premised on cruelty, dominance, and humiliating one's enemies ultimately failed, because it indicates an important difference between the left and the right, moving forward.
Sanders was often, implicitly or explicitly, framed as a left-wing Trump -- big rallies, factional support, same strategy to win the nomination, etc. The worst of the dirtbag left was also framed as an alt-right equivalent -- better principles, similar practices.
People used euphemisms -- Chapo fans were "the guys who would be going to the alt-right," Rogan fans being courted would "be brought along," but the idea of building similar shock troops, with similar practices & different allegiances, having your own pet Rottweilers, was there.
For Trump supporters, his open cruelty & performative humiliation of enemies is a huge part of the appeal. "Screw you, I'm voting for Trump:" The idea that he was going to make everything worse for everyone who wasn't you. The idea that you could use him to get back at the world.
It was very tempting to think that what the left needed was to abandon the high-minded, logical, "woke," "reality-based" thing that was popular in the '00s and '10s and embrace that same kind of rage. That if the Trumps and Milos were winning, we needed our own versions of them.
But right-wing politics is fundamentally premised on cruelty. Bigotry is premised on cruelty. Capitalism and meritocracy and hierarchy are all systems that embrace and exalt dominance. It makes sense that Trump's extreme cruelty would appeal to supporters of those things.
Left-wing politics is, at its best, premised on empathy; everyone is a person like you, everyone is capable of the same pain, everyone deserves respect and care for their fundamental needs. Cruelty and dominance politics don't support those principles, they conflict with them.
I think the roving bands of death-threateners, the guillotine jokes, the people making memes out of an Unlikable Woman's abuse history (ahem), the "bend the knee" and "we'll make you cry" Tweets, helped some people get their ya-yas out, but they also resulted in two huge losses.
Because no matter how kind the principles were, people could look at the people advocating for them and see THEY weren't kind. They said their politics were based in empathy, but their own lack of empathy was obvious. The cruelty didn't support the message. It contradicted it.
Shaming people for being turned off might help you avoid self-reflection. But people won't embrace people who hurt them specifically in the short term to get some abstract good in the long term. They won't trust people they don't believe. "This is for your own good" never works.
I'm going to get harassed forever, because people don't know what to do with my experience but deny or silence it, and I've made my peace with that. But trying to be Trump led directly to avoidable losses. It's worth thinking about how and why you could avoid repeating that.
