You would think that after one of his rabid followers nearly murdered Rep. Steve Scalise at a charity baseball game, that Sen. Bernie Sanders would have learned not to try to gin up harassment of his political opponents. These are, after all, the same leftists who are trying to blame the January 6th Capitol violence on former President Trump because he made a speech in which he called for peaceful protest.

Yet Sanders refused to sign a letter from fellow Senators condemning the nasty harassment of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for not supporting the left’s $3.5 trillion spending orgy bill unless the letter also contained language criticizing her for not voting the way he wants (mighty big of you there, Bernie.) And now, he’s written an op-ed aimed at West Virginia voters, urging them to put pressure on their Senator, Joe Manchin, to force him to support it.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/manchin-dismissively-calls-sanders-a-self-declared-independent-socialist

It was the typical Sanders class envy/socialist blather, claiming this spending (which he wanted to be $6 trillion) would help the working families of West Virginia. (It would somehow do that by putting the energy industries they depend on to feed their families out of business while vastly expanding government, raising taxes, boosting inflation and enriching Democrat cronies such as unions and the “green energy” industry – but I digress.) Sanders also said polls show “overwhelming support” for this bill, which means nothing unless they were taken in West Virginia, which Manchin represents (that’s how a republic works, Bernie.) And he didn’t mention that those polls also show most people don’t know what’s in it. Here’s what’s really in it, if you’re interested:

https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2021/10/14/whats-really-inside-bidens-massive-spending-bill-a-whole-lotta-pain-n422330

Leftists are apparently so used to people caving in immediately every time they scream, “I’m triggered!” that Sanders and others of his ilk really believe these harassment tactics will work. So far, they only seem to be making Sinema and Manchin furious and less likely to compromise with people who are trying to bully them into submission, as you can see from Manchin’s blistering response to Sanders at the link above.

In one short, magnificent paragraph, Manchin skinned Sanders alive as an out-of-stater trying to tell West Virginians what’s good for them without knowing anything about them (to be fair, that’s what “Democratic” socialists do to everybody), gave him lessons in both economics and Senate math, doubled down on his opposition to “reckless expansion of government programs,” and finished with this haymaker: “No op-ed from a self-declared Independent socialist is going to change that.”

Nice touch, reminding West Virginians, who voted for Trump over Biden by 2-1, that Sanders isn’t even a Democrat, he’s an out-and-out socialist.

I doubt that the overaged spoiled brats of the left will learn from this that their public tantrums are not going to force Sens. Manchin and Sinema to buy them a big bag of candy. They’ll probably keep doing it. And while that’s childish and reprehensible, if it makes the two Senators even more resolute about saying no, for once, the left’s utter inability to learn from their mistakes could work out to America’s benefit.