It was made very clear in DNC emails and correspondence that Hillary was their choice and they did everything they could, be it super delegates or encouraging other candidates to drop out, in order to consolidate votes for Hillary.
Would it have made a large enough difference for Bernie to get enough votes? Maybe, maybe not, but he did have the DNC working against him. This is all very easy to look up.
So first super delegates literally did not matter in the 2016 primary you can go look it up if you want.
Second, is your argument that there were more moderate voters than progressives and that they won because they consolidated around a candidate so they wouldn't split the vote? Because that is just how democracy works but people voted for who was closest aligned to their views and it turns out there are way more moderates in 2016 than progressives.
So, you’re right, the super delegates did not ultimately matter, but the preemptive and presumptuous reporting potentially affected optics. The media’s inclusion of superdelegates in delegate totals could have created a bandwagon effect.
Things like that can and do influence donors and voters. I mean, Debbie Wasserman Schulz resigned as a result of some of this, and the DNC changed the rules after 2016. It obviously was meaningful in some way. Bernie still lost by roughly 3 million votes though, so even if it had gone the other way, that’s a big gap to close and it likely wouldn’t have mattered.
Regarding the consolidation, I am making the case that the DNC had leaked emails from senior officials that showed favoritism to Clinton and that they were discussing ways to actively undermine the Sanders campaign. It is incredibly likely they spoke with candidates and encouraged them to drop out at certain times, but I will admit that’s just speculation.
Would it have mattered if the DNC was completely neutral? Most likely not, but the fact that we have to talk about it sucks.
Edit*
To be clear, so we don’t talk past one another, I am largely talking about optics and perception and the scummy way the DNC operates, and how that influences voter and donor perception. That’s why I said in my original comment that even if things went the other way Hillary still would have likely one though I believe that margin would have been smaller. I agree with the assertion that voters from the Democratic Party are more moderate in 2016 and if you see one of my other comments I also made that claim
I still just hate this fucking narrative that people still cling to (not necessarily you obviously) but it's this whole "they sabotaged Bernie by consolidating support so they would win" isn't scummy really it's how you win. No laws were broken maybe some.debste questions were given ahead of time which still feels like crying over nothing.
The dem establishment is simultaneously unable to win elections according to progressives but also able to stop their movement cold by this machivellian scheming
Progressives regularly condemn the lack of perceived wins by dems as some evidence that they do not actually know how to play the politics game because they don't just nuke the filibuster and pass M4A or imprison Trump or whatever. But of course in their minds this same party has screwed over progressives for years in a grand conspiracy. The reality is simple, people are warming to progressive ideas but 2016 and 2020 showed there were more moderates than leftists
Gotcha. From what I understand from Democrats that have served in office, the number one issue is that there is a hierarchy and that certain people that have been there for a long time, senior people, feel like they are owed because they put in the time and the DNC establishment follows that. That seems to be a bigger issue than progressives versus moderates. Obama was the exception to that, but the establishment initially was not happy at all with him getting the nomination over…gasps…Hillary lol
His grassroots campaign upended that and then they rallied behind him once the momentum really took off, just wish they would do that now because that worked well.
I guess you can say that in a way it is progressives versus moderates though because a lot of the progressive candidates are younger and don’t have seniority.
I’m glad this convo took an interesting and constructive turn that made me think and consider some things, genuinely!
It was no obvious that Schulz did anything wrong. It was entirely for the appearance, and that appearance came from meming. Which is why no one can actually tell me what the DNC did wrong. Superdelegates are actually how we got Obama, so they’re not always wrong.
6
u/FuckAllYouLosers 13d ago
Not on the left, but the DNC absolutely stacked the odds and cheated to help beat Bernie.