December 1, 2016

During an appearance on Conan O'Brien's show this week, Bernie Sanders warned about the real meaning behind Trump's bizarre tweets.

He's absolutely 100 percent right about this, too.

Raw Story:

“This is what is scary about that — when he says that, he’s really sending a signal to Republicans all over this country… and what he’s saying is, ‘We have got to suppress the vote,'” Sanders explained. “We have got to make it harder for poor people, people of color, immigrants, elderly people to participate because they may be voting against us.”

Similarly, when O’Brien read Trump’s tweet about stripping people of citizenship if they burn the American flag, Sanders saw there was a menacing subtext where Trump was telling dissenters to think twice before taking their grievances public.

“What he is really saying is, ‘If you want to dissent, be careful,'” Sanders said. “It’s not just the American flag here — [it’s] ‘we’re watching you.’ That’s what’s scary about that.”

One of the things media isn't doing right now is looking at what I call the negative spaces. They get sucked into the speculation over the supposed competition for Secretary of State, yet ignore the fact that Secretary of Defense hasn't been mentioned yet.

They focus on the insanity contained in the tweet without paying attention to the actual message. Here, Sanders has it exactly right. When Trump says immigrants cast illegal votes, he's calling for national voter suppression laws. When he says flag-burning should result in a loss of citizenship, he's calling for totalitarian measures to crack down on dissent.

This is what media needs to report. Why wasn't Bernie Sanders saying that on World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News? Why weren't they reporting on it that way? Because those broadcasts actually are seen by the people who need to understand what they have just voted into office.

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