After a tense state Democratic convention in Nevada escalated to reported violence over the weekend, the Washington Post’s editorial board slammed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for his response after the state party chair received death threats.
In an editorial published online Wednesday evening, the board said Sanders responded to the Nevada upheaval “with self-righteousness and hypocrisy” by releasing a statement that did not accept responsibility for the chaos but highlighted procedural issues with the convention.
“Mr. Sanders’s irresponsibility is sadly unsurprising,” the editorial board wrote. “He has indulged and encouraged hyperbolic feelings that the country is badly adrift, that most of the nation agrees with a left-wing agenda but is trapped in a corrupt system, and that nothing but a political revolution will do.”
“Mr. Sanders denies reality when he tells supporters he still has a plausible pathway to the Democratic presidential nomination,” the editorial continued. “It is past time for Mr. Sanders to be honest with his supporters, before they take the campaign’s irresponsible ethos to greater extremes and thereby help ensure the election of Donald Trump.”
The editorial also suggested Sanders has fostered a “toxic mix of unreason, revolutionary fervor, and perceived grievance” by questioning the legitimacy of the electoral process while lagging behind Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton in votes.
It’s not the first time the editorial board has tangled with Sanders. After a January editorial, headlined “Bernie Sanders’ fiction-filled campaign,” condemned the senator as a “politician selling his own brand of fiction,” Sanders blasted the paper in a breakfast with reporters.
Spokespeople for the Sanders campaign did not immediately respond Thursday morning to TPM’s requests for comment.
