Will the junior Senator from Vermont kneecap the Democrats for his own benefit?

“When it comes to diagnosing the problem many folks in the press are surprised when I say in large part that I agree with Bernie Sanders. I agree with Bernie Sanders that the fix is in, that Washington is corrupt, that it is responding to the giant corporations and the special interests, and the people getting the short end of the stick are the working men and women of this country. Where I disagree with Bernie is on the solution.”

On internet message boards and “dank” Facebook pages in white college towns around the country, an obsession has formed around Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and the principled opposition his supporters believe he stands for. This phenomenon is not too dissimilar to the Tea Party movement Ted Cruz rode to the United States Senate and almost to the White House.

Fake news about Hillary Clinton flows freely on pages like the “Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash,” just as it once did on Tea Party websites that worshiped Senator Cruz and accused former President Barack Obama of being a traitor and illegitimate. Hyperbolic memes laud Sanders as a civil rights hero comparable to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and on these pages Sanders is considered more of a feminist than Secretary Clinton, who traveled to Beijing five years after the Tiananmen Square massacre and declared “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.”

A meme posted in the “Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash” states Sanders and Martin Luther King Jr. are both heroes, while Hillary Clinton is a criminal. The image has been liked and shared by more than 3,000 people.

Online reactionary behavior became a hallmark of conservatives during Obama’s presidency. Normal discourse on conservative Facebook and Twitter pages includes blaming the Obama’s for the death of Joan Rivers, challenging the citizenship of President Obama, and even questioning the gender of former first lady Michelle Obama. A quick overview of the #tcot hashtag reveals the worst demons of the conservative movement almost immediately. The Bernie Left on Twitter and Facebook is beginning to emulate the extreme behavior of these websites.

The favorite target of Sanders favored pages is not Trumpism, nor is it conservatives. There is more pro-Trump sentiment on these pages than there is support for Clinton. Sanders himself has already publicly congratulated Donald Trump for scrapping the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal.

The preferred target of Cruz’s Tea Party were not Democrats, but Republican party elders such as former House Speaker John Boehner and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who were considered traitors by hard-line conservatives. Bernie’s supporters have similar grievances and their target is the pragmatic, multicultural center left. Those who value gradualism over ideological purity. More troubling, however, is that the favorite targets of “Bernie Bros” tend to be people of color such as New Jersey Senator Cory Booker or former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, or powerful women such as Clinton and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The memes have not widely targeted Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, or any of the white males leading the pragmatist wing of the party. The young white men who make up the base of the Bernie Left can be tone-deaf when it comes to race.

A meme posted in the “Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash” portraying former President Barack Obama in a racially stereotypical manner. The image has been liked and shared by more than 2,000 people.

A meme posted in the “Bernie Sanders’ Dank Meme Stash” accuses New Jersey Senator Cory Booker of selling out to the pharmaceutical lobby. The original post used the hashtags #ConmanCory and #BookerTheCrook.

The Sanders insurgency during the Democratic primary was a movement defined by young white males. Sanders was soundly beaten by Clinton in states with the highest population of African Americans and Latinos. Reasonable people can argue if Sanders genuinely reached out to minority communities, but this commercial indicates Sanders knew his intended audience. His constant berating of southern states during the primaries rankled some Democrats who believed he was playing politics with race.

“ Black voters in the South are amongst the most loyal Democrats in the entire party. He hasn’t done well in the South, but him essentially dismissing the South was a slight at African American voters.”

-U.S. Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)

The Bernie Left differs from the Tea Party movement in ideology, but their method of obstructionism is similar. Bernie’s supporters believe politics are a zero sum game and compromise is a dirty word. Similar to Cruz’s followers they believe ideological victories would be abundant if only they had the right leader (Bernie) to secure them. Like Cruz, Sanders knows his supporters do not understand, nor care to learn, the nuances of public policy so he can propose unrealistic policies without facing backlash. In campaign interviews and during the Democratic debates Sanders was at his worst when asked how he would implement his policies.

The Bernie Left fails to see the value of skilled politicians like Secretary Clinton who may compromise sometimes, but ultimately believes the arc of the universe tilts toward justice and works to gradually advance the long march toward progress. Cruz’s Tea Party supporters also rejected the pleas of Republican party elders such as Arizona Senator John McCain when egging Cruz on in 2013 as he forced a government shutdown.

Democrats have an opportunity to be an unusually effective minority party. Their efforts could potentially be compromised by a liberal tea party made up of young white males using social media to shame pragmatism.

Donald Trump is the most unpopular person to ever enter the White House. More than two million people around the world marched against him the day after he was elected, an unprecedented event in American politics.

Protesters at the Women’s March in Denton, Texas, chant “say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here.” More than 2,000 people participated in the protest at Denton County Courthouse on the Square.

When reviewed on a case by case basis, Republican policies are unpopular. This truth will be magnified by social media, something no Republican president has ever had to deal with. George W. Bush’s presidency was ending just as social media was emerging as a political tool. Any risky policy position taken by Republicans such as repealing the Affordable Care Act, challenging the legality of gay marriage, or cracking down on legal marijuana, will be shared millions of times by angry constituents.

If Trump’s presidency proves to be a disaster, and it is off to a rocky start, Obama nostalgia will kick in and the American public will be eager to elect Democrats in 2018. Senator Schumer has already proven more adept at exposing Republican hypocrisy than the man he replaced three weeks ago, Harry Reid. Schumer has posted every flub by Trump’s cabinet nominees during their confirmation hearings to social media. They have been shared hundreds of thousands of times. As Trumpism begins to have real world consequences, social media savvy Democrats like Schumer will have more ammunition than ever.

Democrats can win in 2018 and 2020, but they will be weakened if their brightest stars are constantly kneecapped by Sanders supporters, sometimes with the support of Sanders and his wife Jane, who has already taken to social media to denounce the progressive credentials of Tom Perez, who is running for Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Bernie and his supporters need to decide if they want to be in a productive coalition with the center-left. In the near future it seems like the only politically viable option for them, but political viability has not been a sticking point for some of his voters.

Democrats are better prepared to fight the forces of Trumpism when the center left and far left come together. Will the Bernie Left be a new Tea Party or a productive partner? By making unrealistic demands, and not taking time to understand the policy work behind their demands, the Bernie Left is eroding the path of a long march toward justice.