I did not intend to write this piece about the Bernie Sanders campaign. When I started this experiment I honestly wanted to find out why this primary already feels divisive and toxic. In some ways we are re-living the traumas of the 2016 Democratic primary. I’m not going to rehash that horror show here, as it’s been dissected and picked apart down to the last smashed campaign button.

I wanted to find the source of this bad blood so I turned to the epicenter of online nastiness — Twitter. I realize searching for answers on Twitter has its limitations. Only a small percentage of voters even use the platform. Regardless the POTUS uses Twitter so often, his misspelled and grammatically challenged tweets often end up as top stories in the news cycle. He’s nearly started wars with his clumsy tirades.

I decided not to study the tweets of ardent supporters of any candidate. It’s simply too easy to fake an account on Twitter. A Republican or Russian could masquerade as a Democrat just to sow discord. Some folks create dozens of fake sock puppet accounts to make one person appear like several.

I figured it was better to look at what paid staffers were saying about each candidate and go from there. I selected the two positions that are the best representatives for voter outreach and public relations.

Director of Communications

National Press Secretary

In the cases where a campaign did not have anyone with those exact titles I made my best guess. For a 24 hour period roughly from the night of Sunday 1/19/20 to Monday 1/20/20 I tracked and cataloged 100 tweets from both staffers from the following campaigns — Sanders, Warren, Biden, Klobuchar and Buttigieg. I ended up reading and taking notes on 1000 tweets which were broken down into 10 spreadsheets.

I didn’t go into long thread or conversations. I simply scrolled down each account and made notes on everything they tweeted themselves or retweeted from another account. I marked a tweet as negative if it attacked another Democrat, the press or used the term centrist as a pejorative. Although many on the far left are no fans of centrists, four out of every 10 American voters identify as Independent. Many people proudly call themselves centrists as they are disgusted by both political parties. I did not include any attacks on Donald J. Trump as a negative tweet. Any negative tweet about President Trump was included in its own category.

Out of the ten staffers only one, Brihana Joy Gray of the Sanders campaign, repeatedly spewed negative vitriol at other Democrats, centrists and the media. The following is a breakdown of each campaign. I’m going to start with Bernie Sanders since his campaign is the only outlier.

Bernie Sanders

Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director – Arianna Jones – 97% positive, 3% negative including 2 tweets critical of President Trump. Biden was mentioned negatively three times. The media was also mildly criticized. Pete Buttigieg and Andrew Yang were mentioned favorably as was Chuck Schumer. Overall a mostly positive feed that retweeted Bernie Sanders often.

National Press Secretary – Briahna Joy Gray – 54% negative, 46% positive, with 2 tweets that were critical of President Trump. Roughly 15 tweets included the idea that the media was somehow being unfair to the Sanders campaign. The top tweet pinned to the top of her account was an attack on Joe Biden. Media targets included NYTimes, MSNBC, ABC News, PolitiFact, and Joy Ann Reid. Joe Biden was mentioned negatively 36 times, Elizabeth Warren 3 times, and Klobuchar 2 times. There were two tweets that used the term centrist negatively. Briahna Joy Gray also dedicated an entire episode of her podcast “Hear the Bern” to Biden’s Record. The actual title of the episode is called “Biden’s Record.” This episode was widely promoted in a series of tweets. Gray also retweeted David Sirota, Bernie Sanders speech writer, 14 times. In each tweet Sirota attacked Biden and Politifact. I did not do a deep dive on Sirota’s tweets because he didn’t fit the criteria I set up. It would be unfair to include Sirota since I didn’t track a speech writer of any other candidate. The overall tone of Gray’s tweets was that Bernie was under attack and Biden was enemy #1. One would almost think Biden was the current president and Trump didn’t even exist. Ironically Biden’s team went after Trump the most aggressively out of all 10 staffers I profiled.

Joe Biden

National Press Secretary – Jamal Brown – 97% positive, 3% negative with 9 tweets critical of President Trump. His negative tweets were directed at the media and Facebook. Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders were all mentioned favorably. Barack Obama and Julian Castro were also mentioned in a positive light. The most common theme repeated in his tweets was the support Biden among black voters.

Traveling National Press Secretary – Remi Yamamoto – 98% positive and 2% negative with 17 tweets critical of President Trump. Yamamoto also included an negative tweet about Lindsay Graham. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were mentioned in one tweet but the reference was neutral.

Pete Buttigieg

Director of Communications – Lis Smith – 99% positive 1% negative. The only negative tweet was a mild dig of the NYTimes editorial board not endorsing Buttigieg. No tweets about Trump. Her tweets were overwhelming positive and included the most humor out of the bunch. She did not mention any other Democratic candidates

National Press Secretary – Chris Meagher – 100% positive. No tweets about Trump. Mentioned Corey Booker twice in a favorable manner. This campaign was overall extremely positive and upbeat. Most of their tweets were of volunteers canvassing in Iowa and elsewhere. It was also Buttigieg’s birthday so there were a lot of Happy Birthday tweets.

Elizabeth Warren

Communications Director – Kristen Orthman – 96% positive 4% negative, 4 tweets about President Trump. Her negative tweets were directed at the media. She also used humor often. Mentioned Ayanna Pressley, Biden, Sanders, Buttigieg, Corey Booker, Julian Castro and Andrew Yang. None of her comments or references to these Democrats were negative. Included two positive references to Bernie Sanders specifically.

Press Secretary – Gabrielle Farrell – 100% positive. Mentioned Julian Castro 3 times always in a favorable light.

Amy Klobuchar

Communications Director – Tim Hogan – 100% positive 2 tweets about President Trump. Included images from the service for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that included all of the Democratic candidates arm in arm. Mentioned Corey Booker and Elizabeth Warren favorably. He also included some humorous tweets.

National Press Secretary – Carlie Waibel – 100% positive. No tweets about President Trump. Also mentioned Elizabeth Warren favorably. Included two images from the service for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with the Democratic candidates arm in arm. This account was almost identical to the Communications Director. Overall the Klobuchar staff members were the most positive followed by Pete Buttigieg.

Bernie Sanders can run his campaign however he sees fit. Some voters might view this caustic approach as aggressive or effective. The downside is of course that the scorched earth approach could cause tremendous damage to the rest of the Democratic field. At this point in time it’s highly likely that Bernie will not get the nomination. The vote is fairly evenly split into a 4-way race and the polls are changing by the day. If another candidate seizes the nomination how much damage will be done by this style of campaigning? Is their goal to beat Trump, or to win at all costs? Will this lead to another Bernie or Bust movement? Will disgruntled Sanders voters write in Bernie or pick a third party candidate? This also makes me wonder how much control Sanders has over his staffers. The other campaigns showed a strong sign of coordination between the Communications Director and the Press Secretary. On Sanders team these two women were polar opposites with their approach.

If you’re a huge Bernie Sanders supporter and you love the way his press secretary and staff approach their jobs on Twitter great. Maybe you think he’s not given a fair shake in the press and you loathe Joe Biden. There are still lots of undecided voters out there and voters who will switch allegiances as candidates drop out of the race. This overly harsh approach could drive new people away from the Sanders campaign. It does seem to be a bit of a paradox to offer hope and change while also tearing down other Democrats.

Ultimately it would take weeks and several people collecting evidence from every social media platform to make the best assessment. This cursory glance at Twitter was so lopsided I can’t help but think more research would reveal this style of campaigning also exists on Facebook, Instagram and elsewhere.

If you disagree with my findings I implore you to check it out for yourself. Each staff member’s name is hyperlinked to take you directly to his or her Twitter account. The negativity, at least on Twitter, is only coming from one direction and that’s the Sanders campaign.

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