First, parties are clubs and they can have their own rules about their internal elections and campaigns. The rules of the normal election at federal level do not apply. The whole free association thing.
Second, Bernie is not "real" democrat. He was prior and plans on returning to the Senate as an independent. He joined/registered early enough before the process started... but essentially he was just renting the ticket. I can understand how the party would try to dissuade that.
Which leads to my third point, the party has to care about its platform, future viability and not just one candidate. The Clinton have a long history with the DNC. Obviously Bill was a generally well liked president before (by the base) but they have done a lot over the years to support other Democratic candidates in State, Congressional and even Mayoral races. They've raised a lot of money for the DNC and down tickets candidates.
Finally, Bernie didn't earn any extra points (my eyes) by claiming a lot of problems with voting and the process it self. He benefit from the system where there were caucuses; in NYC (where the DNC electoral organizer sucks) he voters that were purged were in heavy HRC; and to take the the next level the campaign started claiming at the end it was going to flip the super delegates after bitching about it for a while.
TL;DR Parties have their own rules; Bernie did not pay his DNC dues; parties have to care about a lot more then a single election; Bernie acted like a spoiled child about ballot box issues.
Disclosure: I'm registered independent in NY. Can't vote in either parties primary as a result of that.
A hundred years ago, it probably seemed possible to build a third path - but with our modern understanding of game theory, we know a two-party system is the inevitable result of first-past-the-post. Building a third path is impossible.
This creates an inconvenient contradiction - the moral legitimacy of the person sitting on the bench derives from the fact that everyone has the same right to sit on it, but we can quite plainly see the criteria for moral legitimacy are not met in practice.
Some people would say we should aspire to meet the criteria for moral legitimacy; and therefore that, regardless of their private status, their internal elections for access to the path should be free, fair and open to all.
Of course, other opinions are available. Some people would argue that the private property owners' rights were more important, morally, than the legitimacy of the presidency. Or that the idea of pursuing morality in politics is a joke. Or that our consent to our rulers isn't derived from the moral legitimacy of their being fairly elected, but comes from some other source such as habit or force of arms. Or that everything is a shade of grey, america is better than russia or north korea, and improving sounds like a hassle who can be bothered?
I'm very involved in party politics and have run for office.
The Democratic Party isn't a single thing. I can't even summarize it briefly. One facet is a bunch of independent groups sharing the same logo, tribal identity. Another is a hierarchy of squabbling ad hoc volunteer organizations fighting each other for relevancy. A third are the Democratic themed campaigns which are largely parasitic on the party organizations. A fifth are the loose coalitions of like minded interest groups also squabbling for resources and relevance.
The DNC isn't even that influential. Closest analog I can think of is a trade association that hosts conferences.
I can't speak directly to the GOP's structure. From observations and contact with their players, they're similar.
People don't get how candidates are chosen to run for office. Especially at the top of the ticket. I'm talking before the primary / caucus. Special interest groups form and then go candidate shopping. "Superstar" electable candidates, like GWB and Obama, are selected, groomed, promoted to other interest groups (investment clubs, individuals). Note that these groups filled the vacuum left by the decline of the traditional GOP and Dem party machines.
All the other candidates are delusional self promoters. They literally have almost no chance. But they run anyway, to promote their brands, to take one for the team, to get the experience, because anything can happen during the campaign cycle, etc.
Me personally, I'm still gobsmacked that Trump iced out both Cruz and Rubio. My initial post-mortem for the GOP 2016 is Trump's dark horse victory just demonstrates how dysfunctional the GOP has become (the Tea Party has driven away their "moderates").
Literally no one is saying otherwise. This is such a tired and ridiculous strawman.
Nice, Argumentum ad populum.
After following this election pretty closely I have observed that many people do not in fact understand how the parties operate and that the primaries are a party and not a legal construct. It's possible that people either have faulty ideas how the party process is run, or just do not have enough experience with it (many new Bernie voters).
This generalization includes people in the party too.
"and that the primaries are a party and not a legal construct."
The primaries and caucuses are legally recognized party constructs.
I'm just not naive about how they work but ultimately I believe they can run however they want to.
If we want to reform the system that we have (two part) it's clearly not going to come from the parties. I'm personally in favor of having open primaries in every state with relatively late voter registration, getting rid of the electoral collage and the rule that if there's mo majority the senate decides the election.
Don't get me wrong. While I supported Bernie, I feel he was outplayed in a masterful game that he wasn't ready for. I'm not sore about it. Frankly, I'm surprised Hillary didn't win by a far larger margin, considering she had a decade to make deals and sway powerful people her way, and apparently, an entire political machine skewed in her favor.
But the idea that the entire DNC teaming up with a single candidate is to be expected and not taken as simply "rigged" seems intentionally obtuse.
This is a big difference and it matters to the party (organization).
If anything the Republicans (particularly pro-Trump factions) have been awfully hypocritical on this stance since they've previously called for various leakers (Snowden in particular) to return home and face the death penalty. They definitely previously referred to Assange as a criminal and a threat to national security, but I guess as long as he's anti-Hillary he's a hero?
I like the mission of wiki leaks; I think they should do some basic editing like not leaking names or ordinary citizens (or low level gov employees). But, I think Assange is terrible front man for the organization. I guess nobody else wants the job.
IMHO you see more people upset about Wikileaks now because they're actually doing things that are more objectionable.
And I find Assange's overt attempt to influence the outcome of a US election much more distasteful than anything that was in those DNC emails.
If you really want to be fair about not giving people a free pass, don't give Assange one either. He's made his anti-Clinton bias clear, and it's obvious that his leaks only serve to benefit one specific party, not the cause of truth in general.
And let's not pretend that "the DNC rigged the election" is actually an assertion that's supported more by the leaked documents than by Trump-camp propaganda.
But yes, agreed; Wikileaks wasn't an issue until the leaks started showing corruption of the DNC.
Now that it has, apparently the corruption isn't the problem, that evidence of corruption can be leaked is the problem.
Hmm.... Really makes you think.
Time to Correct The Record.
If either of these assumptions is incorrect, then your question is meaningless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_National_Commi...
The RNC had a similar anti-Trump preference. There's similarly no evidence they rigged anything against him.
While there may not be proof that the DNC rigged it against Sanders, that doesn't prove it wasn't rigged. It only proves that no evidence has come to light that it was rigged.
And yet Trump has accused the RNC process of being rigged many times. Strange how the current narrative seems to be that only the DNC is exceptionally corrupt, to the point of rigging an election, and possibly having Seth Rich killed as if the Democratic party was literally a crime syndicate.
There really isn't proof of anything, either way, other than "rigged elections" being the current political accusation du jour.
That's simply false. The accusations against the DNC of "rigging" primarily revolve around bias (revealed in the email dumps), not actual electoral fraud. The RNC was almost certainly biased in a similar (likely more intense) manner against Trump.
It's also entirely possible to rig an election unsuccessfully.
That is all that anyone is really arguing here, contrary to this assertion:
>..just when Wikileaks released info that the DNC primaries were rigged
That's not evidence of election rigging.
It's very reasonable for the DNC to work with the media to defend itself against nonsense allegations.
This e-mail in particular is clear discussion of acting on promoting a narrative (i.e. shopping it to news organizations) to discredit Bernie's campaign: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/11056
I'm sure you'll find a way to explain that away though.
The religion, "Bernie's campaign is disorganized" talking points, and Hillary Victory Fund e-mails are the most odious in my opinion.
I'm not surprised to see DNC discussing narratives for the point when the primary is over.
This is no evidence that the primary was rigged.
So strange that they forgot to mention to shop this story around after the primary. How did you pick up on this intent of theirs without them saying it?
As others mentioned, there was coordination on talking points as well to discredit his campaign.
Sanders didn't lose because the DNC said mean things in their internal email system. He likely lost because he never made much of a dent in the heavily black Democratic voting population in the South.
Also see: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/11056
I'm sure you'll be back to "correct the record"!
That would seem to deflate your point a bit. Surely the DNC isn't violating its neutrality promise if the candidate has effectively been already chosen?
> I'm sure you'll be back to "correct the record"!
I've seen this thrown around several times in this thread. Is it an accusation I'm being paid by the Hillary campaign? If so, LOL.
The candidate had not been chosen, but the DNC lackeys (edit: sorry, top officials) were coordinating media coverage against him.
> The site was described by CNNMoney as offering a "deeply conspiratorial, anti-establishment and pessimistic view of the world." Financial journalists Felix Salmon and Justin Fox have characterized the site as conspiratorial. Fox described Ivandjiiski as "a wonderfully persistent investigative reporter" and credited him for successfully turning high-frequency trading "into a big political issue," but also termed most of the writing on the website as "half-baked hooey," albeit with some "truth to be gleaned from it." Tim Worstall described the site as a source of hysteria and occasionally misleading information.
> Economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman describes Zero Hedge as a scaremongering outlet that promotes fears of hyperinflation and an "obviously ridiculous" form of "monetary permahawkery." Krugman notes that Bill McBride of Calculated Risk, an economics blog, has treated Zero Hedge with "appropriate contempt."
> Lokey, a former paid Zero Hedge writer who left the website in 2016 over disagreements in editorial direction, characterizes the site's political content as "disingenuous," summarizing its political stances as "Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry=dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft."
You'll excuse me wanting a slightly better source.
You can argue with me on it, but what matters is that MANY people now believe this, for example nearly all Trump supporters (and there's a lot of them).
In my opinion, this is the single biggest issue in our new political climate. There is a large, and growing base of people who no longer trust either politicians or the media reporting on them. Conspiracy theories flourish in environments like this, and when enough people believe conspiracy theories are true... sometimes they take actions.
These things have been happening for a long time. Businesses, governments and other entities all have the ability to manipulate the media. I view it as a power struggle that sometimes bubbles up in public.
Oh, and social media is a part of it. Just it's slightly more difficult to control without people noticing.
Only if you believe it is pro-US to abolish the right to bear arms, the right to free speech (hate speech laws) and to impose Socialism on US citizens.
You'll excuse me wanting a slightly better source.
edit: grammar