Here's Why Bernie Sanders And Elizabeth Warren Are Fighting

For the last several months, there's been a sort of truce between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The events of this week, however, have seen that truce collapse like a dying star -- culminating with last night, when the two closed out the debates in a fashion that should be familiar to everyone who had to watch their parents go through a bitter, painful divorce.

So, what happened?

It all started last weekend, when a leaked document revealed that Bernie had instructed his phonebankers to start dissing Warren to prospective voters as a candidate for/by the elites. This was quickly debunked by Sanders, who attributed the attacks to rogue staffers, saying, "We have hundreds of employees and people sometimes say things that they shouldn't." Except, it later turned out that these talking points were deployed by the campaign itself in at least two early voting states. Uh, whoops.

Warren expressed her disappointment at Sanders, but at the same line, attempted to draw a line under the incident by pointing out that this type of petty factionalism was a huge problem during the last election -- and that unless we want a repeat performance, we all have to work together.

It was a good statement which several days later, Warren had an opportunity to double-down on in the wake of an unsourced report by CNN alleging that Sanders had told Warren, back in 2018, that there was no way a woman could ever be President of the United States. Bernie called the allegations "ludicrous," and pointed to his extensive record of supporting female candidates -- while others pointed to the fact that this rumor was clearly designed to appeal to the people who believe Sanders is a raging sexist.

The report, after all, clearly stated that the only people in the room for this conversation were Sanders and Warren. How could anyone else know what was said?

Warren confirmed the report, saying "I thought a woman could win; he disagreed."

The controversy was also the unofficial focus of last night's debate, where Bernie further denied the allegation, calling it "incomprehensible" -- while Warren came out swinging, and pointed at the election win/loss rate of herself and fellow debate Amy Klobuchar as proof that a woman could be President, an argument that -- again -- literally no-one was making. If there's anyone who shouldn't be opening up old wounds, by the way, it's Warren. Sanders might've lost a couple of elections, sure, but he's also been winning them since before Warren was a Democrat.

At any rate, the gloves are now off and our debt-saddled millennial asses have to hope that these two manage to keep it (relatively) civil, lest our only hope for a respectable presidency comes to rest with Joe Biden.

Adam Wears is (allegedly) a comedy writer. Want to read other articles he's written for Cracked? Click here! Want to follow him on Twitter? Click here! Want to check out his website? Click here!