Joy Reid: why are black potential candidates getting singled out for attacks by Bernie people?

[frazzled]

14. Oh, that old canard again

Blame it on a few outliers. How many hundreds of times did we hear that during the 2016 primaries?

Let me tell you this. Unless the leader (who is specifically invoked in that article posted above) disputes the claims of these so-called "outliers," then the charges accrue to him. He owns them, because they are being invoked in his name.

This is what a leader would do: he would make a public statement to say that he does not agree with these opinions: that Kamala Harris and Cory Booker are trusted colleagues whom he respects, and that Deval Patrick, the past governor of a neighboring state, is an upstanding Democrat who did many good things. And he would disabuse them of the notion that the Democrats "played dirty" in the primaries or in the DNC elections.

But someone who is not a leader lets his supporters act and speak unimpeded. That's what Donald Trump did: he let the white supremacists and anti-semites and other nutters run loose. And he'd say, "oh, these are just a few outliers, I can't control what they say or do."

Not buying. The only people trying to divide the Democratic Party are the people (who mostly mistakenly identify themselves as 'leftists') who write the articles like that one: http://theweek.com/articles/715955/why-leftists-dont-trust-kamala-harris-cory-booker-deval-patrick?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter