Someone at the DNC needs to go to jail. If the Clinton campaign wants Sanders voters, they must.
August 1, 2016

 
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There has been a lot of discussion lately over just WHO hacked into the DNC’s email server to expose the fact that the DNC subverted democracy, actively aiding the Clinton campaign and deliberately sabotaging the Sanders campaign to ensure Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee (despite polling worse against all the GOP candidates), but NO discussion whatsoever about the revelations themselves and what (if anything) should be done about it.

When news of these hacked emails broke last June, I agonized over “How does one support Hillary without rewarding the DNC for subverting democracy?” I’m even more ambivalent today about the idea. In one of my first Op/Ed’s this primary season (last February), I stated how if Clinton were to win the nomination, I would vote for her despite the fact I know her to be a closet-Conservative, a hawk, and an opportunist whose positions on the issues shift like the desert sands because the alternative… no matter whom it was going to be… would be far worse.

But now, I’m not entirely certain I can keep that promise as a result of these revelations regarding the DNC. My ambivalence having more to do with ensuring the DNC is held to account for undermining the election of the next president of the United States than any dislike/mistrust I have for Hillary Clinton. Electing a political wind-sock would not be the worst thing so long as that wind-sock tends to drift Left when pushed. But “rewarding” the DNC by actively supporting their hand-picked candidate only encourages them to do so again in the future. Someone needs to be held CRIMINALLY responsible. The simple resignation of DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz is not enough. A self-inflicted slap on the wrist is meaningless. Nothing so toxic that the Clinton campaign wasn’t willing to appoint her “honorary chair of [the Clinton] campaign’s 50-state program”. Schultz’s career in Washington is anything but over.

No, someone needs to GO TO JAIL over what happened if we are to ensure this never happens again. If I’m to cast my vote for Hillary next November rather than vote 3rd Party or leave that space blank on my ballot, someone in the Clinton campaign needs to step up and say, “That’s not right what they did! People need to know they can trust our elections and that their own Party does not actively sabotage the candidacy of fellow Democrats to promote one candidate over another!”

But instead, the Clinton Campaign is leading the charge in misdirecting the media to focus on the leakers rather than the revelations themselves. Their charge is that “this is Russia attempting to aide Donald Trump.” We actually have little-to-no evidence that that is the case. What if the “leaker” turned out to be Edward Snowden? Plenty of Democrats love Snowden. He IS after-all living in Russia. But you never hear anyone from the Clinton camp blaming Snowden for the leaks. Why? You know why as well as I do. Because it would make things very difficult for both the Clinton campaign AND supporters of Edward Snowden now supporting Hillary.

The silence and misdirection surrounding this story feels every bit as orchestrated as the primaries themselves. Meet the Press yesterday conducted an interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who mentions how skillfully the Clinton campaign has changed the subject from “how the DNC subverted the Sanders campaign” (“pushing fake stories that Sanders supporters were violent, etc.”) to instead get everyone to focus on the leakers themselves instead. MtP host Chuck Todd spends the entire 10 minute interview trying to get Assange to reveal the identity of the leaker while Assange keeps trying to bring the focus back to the revelations themselves… that “the DNC actively sabotaged the Sanders campaign and disenfranchised millions of Sanders voters” by undermining his campaign and nullifying their vote:
 


 

Not once during the interview did Todd discuss the revelations inside those leaked emails. Instead, he begins the interview with the false claim Assange was being being detained pending being tried for “child rape” (he has long been cleared) and ends the interview with the false charge that a Wikileaks revelation was responsible for the failed deadly Turkish coup last month… both obvious attempts to impugn the integrity or Assange and the value of Wikileaks itself.

Lately, I’ve been seeing these memes from Hillary supporters trying to “pre-blame” a potential “Trump victory” on Sanders voters who are threatening to vote for Trump. Total nonsense. The number of Bernie supporters that will vote for Trump would probably fill a phone booth with room left over to hold another convention. If Hillary loses to Trump, it won’t be because Sanders voters gave him the win. It will be because the DNC hand-picked the weakest candidate in the race to go up against him despite the fact she never polled beyond the single digits against ANY GOP candidate since the race began in mid-2015.

Some have tried to argue that the DNC was only promoting Hillary over Sanders because “Hillary was a Democrat and Sanders was not”. Even if that were true (it’s not. Sanders changed his Party affiliation before running), Maryland governor Martin O’Malley was ALSO in the race, so now, justify the DNC taking sides to push Clinton over O’Malley before a single vote had been cast. If anyone has a case against the DNC, it would be Governor O’Malley (whom has said nothing other than his lack of surprise that Russia may have been the ones who hacked the DNC.)

Hillary supporters don’t GET (and likely don’t care) that the DNC *undermined our Democracy* by actively promoting one candidate over another, while simultaneously actively *suppressing* the others. If they were REAL Democrats, that should raise serious concerns in them. But it doesn’t so long as their candidate is the one who benefited. But just imagine if Hillary had decided NOT to run again and Donald Trump… who once said he would be more likely to run as a Democrat, had in fact done so, and the DNC decided to ensure “The Donald” was the Democratic nominee? It could have happened. How would all these blase’ Hillary supporters feel about DNC malfeasance THEN? The neo-Democratic Party of today has become indistinguishable from the GOP of 40 years ago, where manipulating elections was once the exclusive purview of Republicans. But now, as long as it is THEIR candidate benefiting from this anti-Democratic misbehavior, they are just fine with it.

They undermined the Sanders campaign. They made sure Sanders would lose and then get Hillary to adopt his most popular positions in an attempt to assuage his supporters into supporting her. Am I supposed to just accept that because the alternative is worse?

I’m also repeatedly annoyed by the (false) claim that this Democratic platform is “the most Progressive platform in history” to try and mollify me. FDR had a FAR more progressive platform than what Hillary is proposing this election. Arguably, even Nixon’s platform of ending the war in Vietnam, creating the EPA and promising a National Health Insurance program was every bit as Progressive.

But far worse is the nonsense claim Hillary is the “most experienced candidate in history!” Even President Obama said it in his Convention speech last Wednesday, and we KNOW he knows better. Hillary was a Senator for 8 years and Secretary of State for 4. Thomas Jefferson… who wrote the Declaration of Independence, served as Governor of Virginia, was appointed both Vice President AND our first Ambassador to France… was FAR more experienced than Hillary… as was every other Founding Father who went on to become president. Every former governor or senator that went on to become VP and then president had more “experience” than Hillary Clinton does now. Hell, even Al Gore… who was also a Senator for 8 years, then VP for 8 years, and in the House of Representatives for 5 years before that had more “experience” than Hillary. She’s not even “the most experienced candidate of the last TWELVE years” let alone “in history.”

But I digress.

The DNC hand-picked the most vulnerable Democratic candidate, and now tries to guilt Sanders voters into supporting Hillary with the threat of a Trump victory. The only option left available to us is to make good on that threat.

It was only the threat of a “contested convention” that got the DNC to incorporate much of the Sanders platform into the official Party platform. And it is only the need of Sanders voters to vote for Hillary in November that will ensure she doesn’t lose in a razor-thin election defeat to Donald Trump. If they believe this race is going to be close, they are going to need the support of every Sanders voter. And right now, they think they have enough of us “locked up” that they don’t have to court our votes anymore. In a PBS interview from the floor of the DNC Convention, Senator Barbara Boxer said, “We have about 95% of Sanders voters, so I think we’ll be okay.” Translation: “We don’t need to worry about that last five percent. We’ll win without them.”

It’s a giant game of chicken, and the DNC is betting that Sanders voters will blink first. But Sanders voters have more leverage. We know a Democratic Congress will block every insane thing Trump might try to do (and block his SCotUS picks). The Generals have publicly stated they would “refuse” any unconstitutional order (such as ordering them to resume using “torture”.) And a Trump victory makes winning the all-important 2020 election ever more likely (“2020” will be a HUGE deal because it’s a Census year when redistricting takes place. And the Party in charge of Congress draws those maps. Before Obama, this country had never had more than two presidents serve two 8-year terms back to back. Now we’ve had three (Clinton-I, Bush-II, Obama). The likelihood of Hillary being re-elected to a second term to be the fourth straight two-term president are incredibly unlikely, making 2020 likely to be a big Republican year. So there is a small argument to be made that a Trump victory now might actually help Democrats in 2020 (and beyond.) That gives us leverage.

So, to the Clinton Campaign I say: The ball is in your court. Do you hold the DNC accountable (calling for a criminal prosecution?), or do we hold you accountable for doing nothing?

It’s hard not to think of Pastor Niemöller’s famed “first they came for the…” poem. Hillary supporters be warned. Ignore the DNC’s crimes now, and you have no recourse next time when the candidate they undermine is yours.
 

Silverman-ridiculous

 

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August 1, 2016 · Admin Mugsy · One Comment - Add
Posted in: Crime, Election, myth busting, Partisanship, Politics, Scandals, voting

One Response

  1. Admin Mugsy - August 2, 2016

    Breaking news the day after this Op/Ed: “CEO and two high level staffers of the DNC resign amid controversy.”

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/dnc-ceo-resigns-in-wake-of-email-scandal/

    A step in the right direction, but a “resignation” is not a “prosecution”.

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