You are absolutely spot on, and the misogynist erasure of Warren has left me disappointed, shocked and angry. I’m grateful you’ve called this out, not least because no one else seems to be and I was starting to think I was being gaslighted alone in a Victorian drawing room.

Though I have no standing as a citizen in the US election — unless I merit some skin in the game via Trump’s ability to hijack Justin Trudeau’s agenda for my country by dropping bombs from whose rubble Trudeau has to dig himself out — I’ve been fired up about Warren for years; in awe of her passion filtered through reason; her fearlessness (does anyone else remember her characterization of Trump in 2016 as “a loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud”?), her folksy yet razor-sharp talent for making wonkish policy understandable for the average voter; her embrace of a positive progressive narrative that resonated; and her integrity, pace the sour and infantile barbs from Sanders supporters calling her “a corporate lackey.” Seriously?

I’m dejected on her behalf because of her obvious merits and suitability for the role of POTUS and for the hard slog she has put in, for the fact that this is no doubt her first and only shot at the Presidential prize. I’m disgusted that in the space of four years, two women, Clinton and Warren, putting in twice the effort that men invest in their careers, have been trashed, sneered at and nullified by an establishment whose members they always equaled and usually surpassed in talent.

I’m disgusted at Sanders supporters who months ago called, with absolute lack of grace or even acknowledgment of her abilities, for Warren to exit the race and endorse Bernie, apparently unaware of the patronising misogyny of that assumption. I was flabbergasted by their belief that Warren “stole Bernie’s agenda,” as though by virtue of being a male he owns the social democracy playbook. But there you are: men are solid; women are treacherous, so the old story has it. (I knew that Sanders supporters skewed young, but I didn’t realize quite how many fontanels had failed to close.)

Disgusted, flabbergasted, but not surprised. These must be the supporters who said of Clinton, “Shut the bitch up;” who bought into, either out of credulousness or cynicism, every conspiracy theory and magnified every sexist cliché or archetype (from “women’ shrill voices” to “can’t be trusted”) while ignoring her impressive achievements from a lifetime in law and in politics, her world-beating resumé and her most obvious qualification, her having been Secretary of State, a role to which Obama obviously appointed her to groom her for the world’s most important office.

These are the Sanders supporters who, in response to Warren’s devastating take-down of Bloomberg in Nevada, which was clearly the impetus for his pulling his campaign, replied, we’ll thank her when she goes. Is there any limit to their spite, their pouty, petulant hostage-taking or their emotional blackmail?

My only fear, and one born of cynicism, was that being a woman made Warren as unelectable as being a so-called “socialist” makes Bernie. Perhaps it’s an even handicap; and if Sanders wins the nomination? Well, this boomer knows that, unfortunately, there are times when nothing disappoints quite so much as getting exactly what you want, especially when it’s demanded with such unfailing mean spirit.

David Roddis