![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I have a Facebook account. And via that account I am informed on a daily basis that Bernie Sanders is being robbed. Hillary and the DNC and the corporate media are actively cheating and rigging the system to steal the nomination from him because it's the ONLY POSSIBLE explanation for Bernie not winning.
I’ve touched on this before, but now that we’re heading into the last of the primaries and the AP is already calling it for Hillary, here’s a couple of recent links to add to that:
1. This segment from John Oliver brilliantly explains why so many people think the party nomination system is rigged.
Executive summary: the nomination process is complicated, inconsistent and confusing, and doesn’t conform to the “whoever gets the most votes wins” concept that most people think is how American democracy works even though technically it never actually has worked that way.
Put another way, yes, the system IS rigged, but only in the sense that the party leaders want some control over who gets nominated in case the yahoos nominate a complete boob like (and I’m just going to pull a name out of the air here) Donald Trump. Which only makes sense – political parties by definition are comprised of dedicated members who follow a specific ideology/platform and are in the business of winning elections. They're not going to let just anyone represent them in a White House race.
So basically, Bernie supporters are angry because the system doesn’t work the way they think it works (or should work), and they don’t understand why it works that way. And this is somehow Hillary’s fault.
Ironically, we’ve had this wake-up call before back in 2000, when George W Bush lost the pop vote but won the electoral vote (FLA’s hanging chads notwithstanding). Back then, people complained the electoral college was undemocratic – and primarily for the same reason (i.e. their candidate lost). Evidently we haven't learned much since then.
Mind you, I’m not saying people are wrong to criticize the electoral college or the primary process and call for more democratic versions of both. That’s a valid discussion, and John Oliver is right to point out that it’s time we had one.
I’m just saying the current system is not a deliberate conspiracy that that Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the New York Times whipped up out of thin air to keep Bernie Sanders out of the White House. It’s worked this way for a very long time – it’s just no one cared as long as they found the Establishment candidate acceptable. Now they don’t, and they're learning the hard way how political parties work.
2. Meanwhile, for the people passing around those memes claiming the numbers don’t add up to a Hillary win, FiveThirtyEight has run the real numbers. Their conclusion: really it doesn’t matter how you cut them or remix them or apply alternate processes to them – Hillary is winning because she’s getting more votes. It doesn’t get more democratic than that.
Stop yr sobbing,
This is dF
I’ve touched on this before, but now that we’re heading into the last of the primaries and the AP is already calling it for Hillary, here’s a couple of recent links to add to that:
1. This segment from John Oliver brilliantly explains why so many people think the party nomination system is rigged.
Executive summary: the nomination process is complicated, inconsistent and confusing, and doesn’t conform to the “whoever gets the most votes wins” concept that most people think is how American democracy works even though technically it never actually has worked that way.
Put another way, yes, the system IS rigged, but only in the sense that the party leaders want some control over who gets nominated in case the yahoos nominate a complete boob like (and I’m just going to pull a name out of the air here) Donald Trump. Which only makes sense – political parties by definition are comprised of dedicated members who follow a specific ideology/platform and are in the business of winning elections. They're not going to let just anyone represent them in a White House race.
So basically, Bernie supporters are angry because the system doesn’t work the way they think it works (or should work), and they don’t understand why it works that way. And this is somehow Hillary’s fault.
Ironically, we’ve had this wake-up call before back in 2000, when George W Bush lost the pop vote but won the electoral vote (FLA’s hanging chads notwithstanding). Back then, people complained the electoral college was undemocratic – and primarily for the same reason (i.e. their candidate lost). Evidently we haven't learned much since then.
Mind you, I’m not saying people are wrong to criticize the electoral college or the primary process and call for more democratic versions of both. That’s a valid discussion, and John Oliver is right to point out that it’s time we had one.
I’m just saying the current system is not a deliberate conspiracy that that Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the New York Times whipped up out of thin air to keep Bernie Sanders out of the White House. It’s worked this way for a very long time – it’s just no one cared as long as they found the Establishment candidate acceptable. Now they don’t, and they're learning the hard way how political parties work.
2. Meanwhile, for the people passing around those memes claiming the numbers don’t add up to a Hillary win, FiveThirtyEight has run the real numbers. Their conclusion: really it doesn’t matter how you cut them or remix them or apply alternate processes to them – Hillary is winning because she’s getting more votes. It doesn’t get more democratic than that.
Stop yr sobbing,
This is dF
