In case you were wondering, Hillary Clinton still has yet to win over all the “Bernie Bros.”
Many supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders still have yet to move past their bitter primary fight against Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Polls show anywhere from about 10 to 33 percent of Sanders’ supporters are not supporting Clinton in the general election.
That fact was reinforced just days before the election at a rally at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. Sanders was set to address a crowd there on behalf of Clinton, but he was first introduced by sophomore Kaleb Vanfosson, who described himself as the president of the “Students for Bernie” club at the school, which is “still going,” he said.
While Vanfosson was certainly critical of Clinton’s main rival, Republican nominee Donald Trump, calling him a “full-time bigot,” he didn’t hold back his contempt for Clinton either, all while standing in front of a podium that bore her logo and name in front of a crowd ostensibly supporting her.
“The only thing she cares about is pleasing her donors, the billionaires who fund her election,” Vanfosson said. “The only people who can really trust Hillary are Goldman Sachs. Citi Group can trust Hillary. The military-industrial complex can trust Hillary. Her good friend (former Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger can trust Hillary.
“She is so trapped in the world of the elite that she has completely lost grip of what it’s like to be an average person. She doesn’t care. Voting for the lesser of two evils? There’s no point.”
Before Vanfosson could go on, what appears to be a Clinton staffer came on stage and escorted him towards the exit. Vanfosson also claimed he was “basically assaulted” after he left the stage, according to the Iowa State Daily.
A Twitter account under Vanfosson’s name also claims he has been receiving hate mail after the speech, which has been viewed nearly a quarter of a million times on YouTube as of Sunday evening.
Sanders took the stage after Vanfosson and did not address the incident, instead telling attendees to not be swayed by a candidate’s personality.
“We’re not running here for class president of the local high school,” Sanders said, according to the Iowa State Daily. “This is not a popularity contest.
“Our job right now in these very difficult times is to bring people together.”
But Vanfosson is hardly alone in his disdain for Clinton. In the past week, two electoral college voters from the state of Washington have said they might ignore the results of their state’s popular vote and cast their ballot for someone else, according to CBS News.
“Faithless electors,” as such voters are called, have never altered the outcome of a presidential election, but with polls showing a tight race before Election Day, some fear that the two electors, who both supported Sanders during the primaries, might hand the presidency to Trump.